Case Law Details
Sunita Palta & Ors. Vs. Kit Marketing Pvt. Ltd. (Madras High Court)
Non-Executive Directors are, therefore, persons who are not involved in the day-to-day affairs of the running of the company and are not in charge of and not responsible for the conduct of the business of the company.’
Admittedly, the petitioners are neither the Managing Directors nor the Authorized Signatories of the accused company. The accused company and the Managing Director are arrayed as accused No.1 and 2 along with others in the complaint pending before the concerned Metropolitan Magistrate. A perusal of the complaint filed under Section 138 r/w Sections 141/142 of NI Act filed by the complainant shows that except for the general allegation stating that the petitioners were responsible for control and management and day to day affairs of the accused company, no specific role has been attributed to the petitioners. To fasten the criminal liability under The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, the above generalised averment without any specific details as to how and in what manner, the petitioners were responsible for the control and management of affairs of the company, is not enough.
In Pepsi Foods v. Special Judicial Magistrate and Ors. reported as (1998) 5 SCC 749, it was held that summoning an accused person cannot be resorted to as a matter of course and the order must
In view of the facts of the case and the aforementioned enunciation of law, I deem it fit to allow the present petition. The impugned order with respect to summoning the present petitioners for the offence under Section 138 of NI Act, is thus quashed.
Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.
Very nice complialation of all judgement. It will great if you could provide guidance for NED to get relief if wrongfully implicated in case and hearing is already going on … Whether such director himself file some proof like Form 32 to prove himself NeD. Since it is very hardship and cost effective for out station person.