In this week’s review of Court Judgments, we look at the Supreme Court’s order that the Drawer of the cheque is liable even if details in it have been filled up by some other person if the cheque was issued in discharge of a liability, that Financial burden on the state is a valid reason to fix a cut-off date for payment of revised pension, that IBC would prevail over the Customs Act, among others. SC: The drawer of the cheque is liable even if details in it have been filled up by some other person Oriental Bank of Commerce vs. Prabodh Kumar Tewar is an appeal against the decision of the Delhi High Court with respect to a cheque bounce case. The respondent in this case was permitted by the Delhi High Court to engage a hand-writing expert to check if the details filled in the cheque were in his hand. The Trial Court had earlier dismissed the respondent’s application seeking to have the cheque and his specimen signature and handwriting examined by a government handwriting expert. The respondent’s appeal was allowed by the High Court. The question before the Supreme Court was if the High Court was right in allowing the respondent to engage a handwriting expert to determine whether the details that were filled in the cheque were in the hand of the respondent. The respondent had admitted that he handed over a signed blank cheque to the appellant. The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna allowed the appeal referring to section 139 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 which presumes that a drawer handing over a cheque signed by him to the payee is liable unless the drawer adduces evidence trial that the cheque was not in discharge of a debt or liability. The bench added that determining whether the respondent filled the details in the cheque using a hand-writing expert on whether the respondent had filled in the details in the cheque would make the purpose for which the cheque was handed over irrelevant. It noted that no purpose is served by allowing the application for adducing the evidence of the handwriting expert. To sum it up, the drawer of the cheque is liable even if the details in it have been filled up by some other person. SC: Financial burden on state is valid reason to fix a cut-off date for payment of revised pension The High Court of Tripura observed that Rule 3(3) of Tripura State Civil Services (Revised Pension) Rules, 2009 was arbitrary and violated Article 14 of the Constitution, and struck down the same. Consequently, it asked the state to pay the original writ petitioner the arrears of pension for a period of 22 months in 2007-2008. The State opposed the writ petition and filed a counter affidavit. It submitted that the State was under a financial burden and that it was not in a position to bear the additional burden of a revised pension. Further, it was submitted that a policy decision was taken to grant the benefit of the revised pension notionally from 2006 to 2008 and to grant the actual benefit of the revised pension from 2009. However, the High Court rejected the state’s submission. The matter was taken to the Supreme Court in State of Tripura vs. Anjana Bhattacharjee where it was contended on behalf of the state that due to financial crunch and considering the heavy burden on the state if it has to pay the actual revision pension from 2006, the development of the state would be affected, because of which a policy decision was taken by the state as seen earlier. It also submitted that the High Court ought not to have interfered with it in the exercise of powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Referring to past judgements, the Supreme Court bench of Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna set aside the High Court’s judgement striking down Rule 3(3). It stated that there was no reason for the High Court to doubt the State’s financial constraints and policy decision even after the state provided specific statistics. Allowing the appeal, the Bench observed that the financial burden on the State can be a valid ground to fix a cut-off date for payment of the revised pension. SC: IBC would prevail over the Customs Act In Sundaresh Bhatt, Liquidator of ABG Shipyard vs. Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, an appeal was filed against the order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) which held that the goods lying in the customs bonded warehouse were not the Corporate Debtor’s (ABG Shipyard) assets as they were neither claimed by the Corporate Debtor after their import nor were the bills of entry cleared for some of the said goods. The Supreme Court Bench constituted by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, Justices JK Maheshwari and Hima Kohli dealt with two questions in this case.