The Court's judgement came out in case titled as AMIT KUMAR MISHRA v/s THE STATE (GOVT OF NCT OF DELHI & ANR). 

CASE BACKGROUND

 The Petitioner through Counsel NIHIT DALMIA herein sought quashing of criminal proceedings against him initiated under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act as the respondent/complainant gave him cash loan of ₹50,000 which he promised to pay back in eight months. However, on the due date, he only paid ₹19,500 and asked for one month's time to pay the rest of the amount. For the same, in Dec 2016, he presented a cheque of ₹30,500 to the respondent/complainant which went dishonored on 02.01.2017. In response, the respondent/complainant served legal demand notice dated 06.02.2017 via post. 

The respondent/complainant contended that he immediately contacted the petitioner overcall after the dishonor of the cheque but hadn't received any satisfactory answer. On the other hand, Learned Counsel of the petitioner contended that the notice was served beyond 30 days of knowledge of the dishonor of cheque and thus no offence under Section 138 of the NI Act is made out as clause (b) of the proviso to Section 138 NI Act is not proved.

To make his case he relied on Kamlesh Kumar v. State of Bihar and Anr in which the Supreme Court held:

“15. It is, thus, apparent that he received the information about the dishonor of the cheque on 10.11.2008 itself. However, he did not send the legal notice within 30 days therefrom. We, thus, find that the complaint filed by him was not maintainable as it was filed without satisfying all the three conditions laid down in Section 138 of the N. IAct as explained in para 12 of the judgment in the case of MSR Leathers, extracted above.”

The observation was re-affirmed by the Supreme Court in Sivakumar v. Natrajan.

13. It is one thing to say that sending a notice is one of the ingredients for maintaining the complaint but it is another thing to say that dishonor of a cheque by itself constitutes an offence. For the purpose of proving its case that the accused had committed an offence under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, the ingredients thereof are required to be proved. What would constitute an offence is stated in the main provision. The proviso appended thereto, however, imposes certain further conditions which are required to be fulfilled before cognizance of the offence can be taken. If the ingredients for constitution of the offence laid down in provisos (a), (b) and (c) appended to Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act intended to be applied in favor of the accused, there cannot be any doubt that receipt of a notice would ultimately give rise to the cause of action for filing a complaint. As it is only on receipt of the notice that the accused at his own peril may refuse to pay the amount. Clauses (b) and (c) of the proviso to Section 138, therefore, must be read together. Issuance of notice would not by itself give rise to a cause of action but a communication of the notice would.”  

The Court thus quashed the criminal proceedings against the petitioner as it was evident that the legal notice was served beyond 30 days which defer the law established in Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act,