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Judgment
This petition has been filed for quashing the proceedings in CC No.67 of 1998 on the file of the II Addl. Judicial First Class Magistrate, Tanuku.
It is stated that the petitioner herein is an accused in a complaint case filed by the respondent No.l herein for an offence punishable u/s 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. The complaint proceeds on the basis that the petitioner herein issued a cheque in respect of consideration received by him which when presented to the Bank concerned was dishonoured on the ground of insufficiency of funds available in the petitioner''s account.
The learned Counsel for the petitioner seeks to quash these proceedings on two grounds. Firstly, it is stated that the cheque in question was not voluntarily signed by the petitioner and that the signature was obtained on it by coercion. Secondly, it is contended that the cheque was presented to the Bank after the petitioner issued a notice to the respondent herein to return the cheque for various reasons mentioned in the said notice. These grounds constitute the defence of the petitioner herein and they depend on proof of certain facts as alleged by the petitioner herein. They are not the facts admitted by the respondent No. 1 herein. These questions have to be gone into during the trial of the case before the learned Magistrate. They do not constitute a ground for quashing the proceedings at all.
In the result, the petition is dismissed. It is hoped that the proceedings in CC No.67 of 1998 on the file of II Addl. Judicial First Class Magistrate, Tanuku will be completed expeditiously at any rate within a period of six months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.