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REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 833 OF 2014 ARISING OUT OF

SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO. 7700 OF 2007  

M/S. HARYANA STATE COOP. SUPPLY AND MARKETING FEDERATION LTD.      ...  APPELLANT

VERSUS

M/S. JAYAM TEXTILES & ANR.  ... RESPONDENTS

WITH

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 834 OF 2014 ARISING OUT OF

SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO. 20 OF 2008  

M/S. HARYANA STATE COOP. SUPPLY AND MARKETING FEDERATION LTD.      ...  APPELLANT

VERSUS

M/S. JAYAM TEXTILES & ANR.  ... RESPONDENTS

Crl.A. @ SLP(Crl) No. 7700 of 2007 Page 1 of 10

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-   J U D G M E N T

N.V. RAMANA, J. 1. Leave granted. 2. The present appeals have been filed against the  

judgment dated 18.06.2007 passed by the High  

Court of Judicature at Madras in Crl. A. Nos.  

348 and 410 of 2001 thereby dismissing the said  

appeals on the ground that Mr. Davinder Kumar  

Lal,  claiming  to  be  the  power  of  attorney  

holder  of  the  appellant-Federation,  has  no  

locus standi to file the complaints/appeals as  

he  has  failed  to  prove  that  the  Appellant-

Federation had authorised him to file the same.  

3. The  facts  of  the  two  appeals  are  –  the  appellant-Federation supplied cotton bales to  

the respondents of the value of Rs.30,45,602/-  

vide  three  invoices  dated  19.12.1994,  

21.12.1994 and 20.01.1995. The respondents, to  

discharge their liability, issued in total four  

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cheques – two cheques for Rs.5 lakhs each dated  

16.01.1995 and 20.01.1995 respectively and two  

-

4. cheques for Rs. 11 lakhs each dated 20.01.1995  and  25.01.1995  respectively.  However,  on  

presentation, all the said four cheques were  

returned unpaid by the bank with an endorsement  

‘for want of sufficient funds’. The appellant-

Federation  sent  legal  notice(s)  dated  

19.04.1995 and 27.04.1995 under Section 138 of  

the  Negotiable  Instruments  Act,  1881  (for  

short,  ‘the  N.I.  Act’),  which  were  duly  

received by the respondents. On failure of the  

respondents  to  pay  the  amount  within  the  

stipulated time of 15 days from the date of  

receipt of the notice, the appellant-Federation  

filed complaints under Section 138 and 140 of  

the  N.I.  Act  read  with  Section  420  of  the  

Indian  Penal  Code,  1860  (for  short,  ‘the  

I.P.C.’)  against  the  respondents.   The  said  

complaints  were  dismissed  by  the  Judicial  

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Magistrate vide order dated 07.02.2001 and the  

appeals  filed  against  the  said  order  were  

dismissed  vide  impugned  judgment  dated  

18.06.2007,  solely  on  the  ground  that  the  

‘authorisation’  was  not  produced  by  the  

complainant-appellant.  

5. - 6. It  is  submitted  by  the  counsel  for  the  

appellant-Federation that in fact there was an  

authorisation from the Board of Directors of  

the Federation, but unfortunately, the same was  

not  filed  along  with  the  complaint  and  on  

account of this reason only, the complaint was  

dismissed, and as a matter of record, the said  

authorisation delegating powers was passed in  

the meeting of the Federation on 15th April,  

1976  and  an  opportunity  to  the  appellant-

Federation  could  have  been  afforded  by  the  

Courts  below  to  furnish  the  authorisation,  

particularly when the appellant-Federation is a  

Public Sector Undertaking and money which has  

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to be paid by the respondents is public money.  

In support of his submission, learned counsel  

has drawn our attention to  Annexure–P/7, the  extracts  of  the  meeting  of  the  Board  of  

Directors of the Federation held on 15.04.1976,  

which are in the following terms:

“14 DELEGATION OF POWERS  The  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Haryana  

State Co-operative Supply and Marketing - Federation in their meeting held on 15.4.1976  resolved to delegate the following powers to  the authorities mentioned against each and to  the extent indicated as under.  

Delegation of Powers to various officers of the Federation. -------------------------------------------------------------- Sr. Nature of Powers    Authority to whom  Extent of powers No.    delegated  1   2    3   4 --------------------------------------------------------------

(A) Administration 1 to 23 xx xx xx

24. Institution and defence of legal proceeding etc.

  i)   To institute, conduct, M.D.     Full Power  defend, compromise,  refer to arbitration and abandon legal or other proceedings  and claims and also to file  appeals, revisions, review  

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petitions and executing by  and against the Federation  and also to engage lawyers  for that purpose from time  to time.

 ii)   To give general power of M.D.       Full Power  attorney to any person / officer for conducting the cases in Courts etc.

(B) Financial Administration 25 o Category B xx xx xx”

7. Learned  counsel  for  the  appellant-Federation  further submitted that it is in pursuance of  

the  above-said  delegation  of  powers  to  the  

Managing -

8. Director,  the  general  power  of  attorney  in  question was executed by him authorising Mr.  

Davinder Kumar Lal to take civil and criminal  

action  against  the  defaulters  including  the  

respondents  herein.  He,  therefore,  prayed  to  

remit back the matter to the Trial Court with a  

direction to consider the whole issue taking  

into consideration the authorisation delegating  

powers to the Managing Director as passed by  

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the appellant-Federation in its meeting held on  

15th April, 1976.

9. Learned senior counsel for the respondents, on  the other hand, contended that several years  

have already been passed in the litigation and  

despite sufficient opportunity has been granted  

by the Courts below, the appellant-Federation  

has failed to produce authorisation and hence  

there is no reason for this Court to interfere  

at  this  stage.  When  the  matter  was  listed  

before us on 11.03.2014, a specific query was,  

however,  put  to  the  learned  senior  counsel  

appearing for the respondents as to whether the  

respondents have paid the amounts which are due  

and payable to -

10. the appellant-Federation. It was submitted, on  instructions,  that,  in  fact,  arbitration  had  

taken place and even the award had been passed  

against  the  respondents,  but  the  respondents  

have not complied with the terms of the award  

so far.   

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11. Having heard learned counsel for the parties  and after perusing the material on record, we  

find that admittedly authorisation by the Board  

of  Directors  of  the  appellant-Federation  was  

not placed before the Courts below. But, we may  

notice that a specific averment was made by the  

appellant-Federation  before  the  learned  

Judicial Magistrate that the said General Power  

of Attorney has been filed in connected case  

being CC No. 1409/1995, which has neither been  

denied nor disputed by the respondents. In any  

case, in our opinion, if the Courts below were  

not  satisfied,  an  opportunity  ought  to  have  

been  granted  to  the  appellant-Federation  to  

place the document containing authorisation on  

record and prove the same in accordance with  

law.  This is so because procedural defects and  

irregularities, which are curable, should -

12. not be allowed to defeat substantive rights or  to cause injustice.  Procedure, a hand-maiden  

to justice, should never be made a tool to deny  

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justice  or  perpetuate  injustice,  by  any  

oppressive or punitive use.  {See Uday Shankar  

Triyar Vs.  Ram Kalewar Prasad Singh, (2006) 1  SCC 75}.

13. In  view  of  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  arbitration  award  against  the  respondents,  

there  was  non-payment  of  amount  by  the  

respondents  to  the  appellant-Federation,  and  

also in the light of authorisation contained in  

Annexure–P/7, we are of the opinion that, in  the  facts and  circumstances of  the case,  an  

opportunity should be given to the appellant-

Federation  to  produce  and  prove  the  

authorisation before the Trial Court, more so,  

when  money  involved  is  public  money.  We,  

therefore,  set  aside  the  judgments  of  the  

Courts below and remit the matters back to the  

Trial Court with a direction to conduct trial  

afresh  taking  into  consideration  the  

authorisation placed before us and dispose of  

the -

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14. matter  as  expeditiously  as  possible  in  accordance with law.

15. The appeals and the interlocutory applications  stand disposed of accordingly.

.............C.J.I. (P. Sathasivam)

  .................J. (Ranjan Gogoi)

.................J. (N.V. Ramana)

New Delhi; April 07, 2014.

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