The country’s highest court has made it crystal clear—when it comes to cheque dishonour complaints, the 30-day clock is not just a suggestion, it’s law.
A bench led by Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and K. Vinod Chandran overturned a Delhi High Court ruling that had allowed a belated complaint to proceed. The case in question involved a cheque bounce complaint filed on the thirty-fifth day, without any application seeking condonation of delay. That missing step, the Court said, is fatal.
The judgment underlines a simple but strict principle: unless a formal request explaining the delay is filed and judicially considered, the complaint cannot move forward. No shortcuts, no assumptions, no “automatic condonation.”
The Court stressed that trial courts cannot casually overlook limitation periods. If the law prescribes 30 days, then it’s 30 days—unless the complainant justifies the delay and secures the court’s explicit permission.
The ruling also takes a firm swipe at the High Court’s stance that a trial court could still condone delay even without a formal application. That, the Supreme Court said, is simply “erroneous.”
With this, the appeal was allowed, and the complaint quashed—another reminder that the Negotiable Instruments Act leaves little room for slackness in cheque dishonour litigation.
