In Re: Expeditious Trial of s.138 NI Act Cases: the Constitution Bench's pendency reforms

A correction at the outset

It is sometimes assumed that this Constitution Bench was led by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana. That is incorrect. The Constitution Bench was presided over by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, with Justices L. Nageswara Rao, B.R. Gavai, A.S. Bopanna and S. Ravindra Bhat. CJI Ramana separately commented on the pendency of Section 138 cases in public remarks around the same period — which likely accounts for the confusion — but he neither authored nor presided over this judgment.

The facts in brief

The proceeding began not as an adversarial appeal but as a suo motu initiative. While hearing a Section 138 matter, the Court was struck by the staggering pendency of cheque-dishonour cases across the country — millions of complaints clogging magisterial courts, with the summary-trial design subverted by indiscriminate conversion to summons trials and by procedural delay at every stage.

The Court registered Suo Motu Writ Petition (Crl.) No. 2 of 2020, appointed an amicus curiae, and constituted a committee of senior practitioners and officers to study the bottlenecks and recommend reforms. The committee's report and the amicus's submissions canvassed the service of summons, the mode of recording evidence, the joinder of multiple complaints arising from one transaction, the role of mediation, and the need for legislative change. Sitting as a five-judge Constitution Bench — an unusually large bench for a procedural-management exercise, reflecting the systemic stakes — the Court synthesised these inputs into a set of directions binding on the High Courts and trial courts.

The systemic problem

Section 138 cases form a vast share of the criminal docket in the magistracy. Parliament had designed these cases to be tried summarily — quickly, on affidavit evidence, without the procedural heft of a regular trial. In practice, that design had been subverted. Magistrates were converting summary trials into summons trials almost as a matter of routine, defeating the very mechanism intended to dispose of cheque cases efficiently. Service of summons was slow. Multiple complaints arising from a single transaction had to be tried separately because Section 219 of the Criminal Procedure Code bars the joint trial of more than three offences of the same kind. The cumulative effect was a caseload the system could not clear.

What the Court held

No more mechanical conversion

The Court directed that High Courts issue practice directions requiring magistrates to record cogent and sufficient reasons before converting a complaint from summary trial to summons trial. The era of routine, "mechanical" conversion — which had defeated the summary-trial scheme of Sections 143 to 147 — was to end.

The Court also clarified the service-of-summons regime to curb delay, and encouraged evidence on affidavit and the use of technology — building directly on the case-management approach of Meters & Instruments.

A request to Parliament

On the joinder problem, the Court confronted a limit it could not itself remove. Section 219 of the Criminal Procedure Code bars the joint trial of more than three offences of the same kind. Where a single transaction generates many cheque-dishonour complaints, that bar forces a multiplicity of separate trials. The Court recommended that Parliament consider an amendment to permit one trial for multiple Section 138 complaints arising from a single transaction — a clear instance of judicial-legislative dialogue, the Court flagging a structural fix it could signal but not supply.

Mediation and continuing supervision

The Court directed High Courts to identify and refer eligible pending Section 138 revisions and appeals to mediation, and it established a continuing supervisory mechanism — a committee and follow-up hearings — to monitor implementation. The judgment was framed not as a one-off pronouncement but as an ongoing supervisory mandate.

Doubting Meters & Instruments

On a doctrinal point of friction, the Bench doubted the correctness of Meters & Instruments v. Kanchan Mehta insofar as that decision had permitted a magistrate to close Section 138 proceedings under Section 258 of the Criminal Procedure Code without the complainant's consent. The Bench observed that Section 258 applies to cases instituted otherwise than on complaint, whereas Section 138 cases are complaint cases — so the textual fit was doubtful. It referred that question for reconsideration. This is the key carry-forward caveat for Meters & Instruments: the closure proposition can no longer be safely relied upon.

Why a Constitution Bench for a procedural problem

It is worth pausing on the institutional choice the Court made. Five-judge Constitution Benches are reserved, by the constitutional scheme, for substantial questions of law concerning the interpretation of the Constitution. To convene one for what is, on its face, a problem of judicial administration — how to clear a backlog of cheque cases — was unusual, and the unusualness is itself instructive.

The explanation lies in the scale and intractability of the problem. Section 138 cases number in the millions and form a dominant share of the magistracy's criminal docket. No single appeal could fix a systemic failure of this magnitude, because the failure was distributed across thousands of trial courts following divergent practices. What was needed was not the resolution of a dispute between two parties but the framing of binding, uniform directions that would bind every High Court and every trial court — and the institutional weight of a Constitution Bench gave those directions the authority to command nationwide compliance.

The choice also reflects the constitutional source of the power exercised. The directions were issued under Article 142, the Court's plenary power to do complete justice, deployed here not to decide a case but to reform a process. A Constitution Bench is the natural forum for so consequential an exercise of that power, and the gravity of the bench signalled that the reforms were not advisory but mandatory. The case thus stands as an example of the apex court using its highest configuration to address a problem the ordinary machinery of litigation had proved unable to solve.

The doctrinal architecture

The case is the leading modern statement on the procedural management of cheque litigation, and it is doctrinally interesting for the institutional form it takes. A five-judge Constitution Bench, exercising suo motu power, reformed criminal procedure by directions under Article 142 — institutional reform through the Court's plenary jurisdiction rather than through the resolution of a contested appeal.

It revives the summary-trial design that Parliament had built into Sections 143 to 147 by ending mechanical conversion. It models judicial-legislative dialogue by flagging the Section 219 barrier for Parliament's attention. And it institutionalises both mediation referral and continuing judicial supervision of pendency — treating the disposal of cheque cases as a managed, monitored process rather than a settled body of substantive law.

Subsequent trajectory

The Constitution Bench retained seisin and passed follow-up orders — including in 2021 and further directions in 2022 — operationalising pilot studies, the designation of special courts, and reporting by the High Courts. The supervisory mandate remains live. High Courts across India issued practice directions implementing the summary-trial and reasons-for-conversion requirement.

The referred question on Meters & Instruments — the Section 258 closure proposition — awaits authoritative resolution, so practitioners continue to treat that proposition as doubtful. The reforms dovetailed with the 2018 NI Act amendments (Section 143A interim compensation; Section 148 deposit pending appeal) and with the broader bail-and-pendency reform current later seen in Satender Kumar Antil. With the replacement of the Criminal Procedure Code by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the procedural directions now read against the BNSS summary-trial provisions, but the case remains the governing authority on managing the cheque-case caseload.

Why it still matters

For any practitioner handling cheque-dishonour litigation, this is the operating framework. It governs when a summary trial may be converted, how evidence is to be recorded, when mediation should be considered, and — through its doubting of Meters & Instruments — what closure routes can and cannot be relied upon. It is also a notable example of the Supreme Court using its constitutional powers to address a problem of judicial administration that no individual appeal could have solved.

Related on Valkya

• Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod v. State of Maharashtra: cheque-dishonour jurisdiction
• Meters and Instruments v. Kanchan Mehta: s.138 as a compensatory offence
• MSR Leathers v. S. Palaniappan: re-presentation and successive cause of action

Sources

1. Supreme Court Observer — "Supreme Court frames guidelines to tackle pendency of cheque dishonour cases": https://www.scobserver.in/journal/supreme-court-frames-guidelines-to-tackle-pendency-of-cheque-dishonour-cases/
2. LiveLaw — "'Amend Section 138 NI Act to allow one trial for multiple cases from single transaction': SC issues directions": https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-issues-directions-for-expeditious-trial-of-cheque-cases-172650
3. SCC Times — "No more 'mechanical' conversion of complaints under Section 138 NI Act from summary to summons trial; Magistrates 'must' record reasons": https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2021/04/18/no-more-mechanical-conversion-of-complaints-under-section-138-ni-act-from-summary-to-summons-trial-magistrates-must-record-reasons-supreme-court/
4. Supreme Court of India — official judgment portal (case search): https://www.sci.gov.in/judgements-judgement-date/