Whether a person accused of an offence under Section 138 of Negotiable Instrument Act, 1881, who has duly compensated the complainant or intends to compensate, can seek compounding of the offence under Section 147 of the aforesaid Act even without the ‘consent’ of the complainant?
Section 147 of the NI Act provides that all offences under the NI Act are compoundable but the aforesaid provision, unlike Section 320 of the CrPC, does not delineate the manner in which such compounding is to be done. In Damodar S. Prabhu v. Sayed Babalal H. the Hon’ble Supreme Court, while prioritising the compensatory aspect of the remedy over the punitive aspect, issued guidelines for compounding of offence under Section 138 of NI Act. This jurisprudence was further extended by later decisions to allow compounding even at later stages of the criminal proceeding including after the conviction. Issue of compounding further witnessed some conflicting decisions with respect to the question of ‘consent’ i.e. whether the consent of the complainant is irrelevant is such matters? This was answered in the negative by the Hon’ble Supreme Court recently in Raj Reddy Kallem v. State of Harayana (2024) 8 SCC 588 wherein the Hon’ble Court, while distinguishing the quashing of a case from compounding as the latter is primarily based upon the consent of the parties, held that in a case where complainant has been duly compensated by the accused and yet the complainant does not agree for compounding of the offence, the courts cannot compel the complainant to give ‘consent’ for compounding the matter.