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Create a Cheque Dishonour Notice
What this document does
The notice a payee must give under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act 1881 when a cheque is returned unpaid. It identifies the cheque, states the debt it was given for, records the dishonour, and demands payment within fifteen days of receipt. Unlike an ordinary demand it is a precondition to prosecution: without it, in this form and inside the statutory window, no offence under s. 138 is made out.
Notice
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Cheque Dishonour Notice
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What else is in it — 6 clauses, 4 optional
- 01
Who the notice is from and to
The head of the notice: the place and date it bears, who it issues from, and everyone it is addressed to. Recipients are entered here rather than through the party picker — a notice is served on its recipients, not agreed with them, and the Sender is its only signatory.
- 02
Subject
The one line a recipient reads first, and the line the notice is later found by in a file. Written by the Sender rather than composed from the facts — those live on other clauses, and a clause cannot read another clause's data.
- 03
What the cheque was given for
The debt or liability the cheque was issued to discharge. Mandatory, and not padding: s. 138 bites only where the cheque was drawn for the discharge of a legally enforceable debt or other liability. A cheque given as a gift, as security in circumstances where nothing was yet owed, or for a debt already time-barred falls outside the section, and the Explanation to s. 138 says so in as many words.
- 04
The cheque
The particulars of the cheque itself — its number, date, amount, the bank it was drawn on, and in whose favour. A s. 138 notice is about one identified instrument, and these are the particulars a complaint is later built on.
- 05
Presentation and dishonour
When the cheque was presented, when it came back, what the bank's memo said, and when the Sender was told. The last of those is recited because the thirty-day window to give this notice runs from it, and stating it on the face of the notice is how the notice shows itself to be in time. Nothing computes a date from any of them.
- 06
Demand under s. 138
The operative paragraph, and the one the statute prescribes. Proviso (c) to s. 138 gives the drawer fifteen days from receipt of the notice to pay, and a notice demanding any other period is not a s. 138 notice — so the period is fixed text here rather than a field. Nothing computes a date from it: receipt is unknowable at drafting.
After it is drafted
The thirty-day window this has to go out in
Proviso (b) to s. 138 gives a payee thirty days to make this demand, running from the bank telling you the cheque came back unpaid — not from the date printed on the return memo, and not from when the cheque was presented. A notice sent after that window does not satisfy the section, and no later notice repairs it, which is why this is the one date on the whole file worth checking twice.
Getting it to the recipient
A notice takes effect when it reaches the person it names rather than when it is signed, so how it travels matters about as much as what it says. Registered post with acknowledgement due is the usual choice because it produces both a receipt and a card that comes back; courier and email do the same job where the agreement or the statute allows them. Whichever route it goes by, what it leaves behind is the part worth having.
Keeping the proof it was sent
The postal receipt, the acknowledgement card when it comes back, the courier's tracking printout, the delivery report on an email — whichever way it travelled, that record is what shows the notice went out and when. It tends to matter more later than the notice itself, because a recipient who says nothing reached them is answered by a receipt rather than by a copy of the letter. An envelope that comes back refused or unclaimed is worth keeping unopened for the same reason: refusing a notice is generally not treated as having escaped it.
Letting the period run
The period this notice gives runs from when it reaches the recipient, not from the date it carries — which is why the proof of sending matters for working out when it ends. Moving before it expires tends to undercut the notice, since the point of naming a period is to have given it. If a reply arrives, it is worth keeping with the proof of service: what the other side admits in writing can matter as much as what they refuse.
If the fifteen days pass without payment
Proviso (c) gives the drawer fifteen days from receiving this to pay. Where they do not, the cause of action arises on the sixteenth day, and s. 142 allows one month from that date for a complaint before a Judicial Magistrate of the First Class or a Metropolitan Magistrate. That is a short window on a criminal matter, and the point at which most people take the file to a lawyer rather than work the dates out themselves. Worth knowing separately: the complaint punishes the dishonour, it does not recover the money — the debt is a civil claim of its own, on its own timetable, and the two run independently.