Four Gurugram courts looking only at cheque bounce cases

Source:- timesofindia.indiatimes.com

GURUGRAM: Guess what’s the biggest ‘crime’ in Gurugram? Forget the usual – chain snatching, carjacking, loot, rape, murder. It’s cheque bounce. In fact, the problem is so acute in this corporate hub that four of its 44 courts are solely dedicated to disposing of cheque bounce cases.

At present, there are a total of 65,000 cases pending in Gurugram’s district courts. Of these, about 20,000 are related to cases of cheque bounce. Law officers attribute this worrying trend to the presence of a large number of financial companies and corporate houses in the city. On an average, around 1,500 new cases of cheque bounce reach the courts every month, nearly 1,400 of which are filed by financial firms.

There are thousands of Indian and multinational companies based out of Gurugram, including half the Fortune 500 ones.

“Cases filed on cheques bouncing constitute about a third of the total litigations before courts in Gurugram. It is mainly because the district has offices of many financial institutions and corporate houses,” said district and sessions judge Harnam Singh Thakur. There have been instances when hundreds of cases pertaining to cheque bounce were filed in a single day, he added.

Rajiv Kaushik, a member of the district bar association, said new rules allow a complainant to file a cheque bounce case at the place where the complainant’s office is located. “Gurugram is host to numerous financial institutions, so they all file their cases of cheque bounce here,” he explained. And with the number of corporate offices coming up in Gurugram on the rise, the number of such cases is also likely to increase in the coming years.

Vishal Dubey, a senior official with an international financial institution in the city, said cheque bounce cases arise mainly in cases of loan repayments. Customers are generally required to write cheques for payment of EMIs in advance, which often bounce at the time of withdrawal because of insufficient balance in the account, forcing banks or financial houses to take legal recourse. “On some occasions, several dozen cases of a single company are listed for hearing on a single day,” Dubey added.

President of the district bar association, Sudesh Yadav said rules require a complaint to be filed within a stipulated time from the date of a cheque bouncing. “One cannot claim the money if the matter is not reported within the deadline. Understandably, banks, firms or individuals rush to lodge a complaint whenever a cheque bounces. However, many cases are resolved through mediation in out-of-court settlements,” he said.

Experts claim this trend has both its advantages and disadvantages. While increasing cheque bounce cases mount pressure on an already overburdened judiciary, financial crimes have provided a boost to the careers of many a practising lawyer. “Many a lawyer has made a name for himself by primarily representing cheque bounce cases,” asserted Kaushik.