Judgment 1. THIS order shall govern the disposal of Cr. Rev. Nos. 2626 to 2630 of 1996 also. 2. THESE petitions have been filed for quashing Case Nos. C/1763 of 1996, C/ 1762 of 1995, C/1761 of 1995, Case No. C/3 of 1996 (T. R. 67 of 1996), C/116 of 1996 and C/1711 of 1995 being T. R. No. 83 of 1996, pending in the Court of Additional chief Judicial Magistrate, Sealdah. The petitioner is a landlord in respect of the premises occupied by petitioner orissa Industries Limited, having its principal office at Rourkela. It also has a local office in the tenanted premises owned by complainant at Calcutta. The present petitioner Mr. K.P. Jhunjhunwala is one of the Directors of the company and in charge of company's local office. The petitioner issued certain post-dated cheques on behalf of his company which ultimately bounced. The opposite party served a notice in each case and required him to make payment within one week failing which the prosecution would be launched. Since no payment was made separate prosecution for each default has been launched. 3. THE petitioner has urged the following grounds :- (i) Since the company has not been made an accused, an authorised signatory or a Director alone is not liable to be prosecuted; (ii) The notices of demand that were served on him were not valid; (iii) That the trial Court has no jurisdiction since no part or of cause of action arose with the jurisdiction of the court below. 4. THE ld. counsel for the petitioner has urged that since the lawyer's notice sent under proviso (b) to section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, requires the petitioner to pay the amount within seven days of the receipt of notice, whereas section 138 of the N. I. Act requires the payment to be made within 15 days, the notice is bad in law. Proviso (b) of Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act runs thus :- "the payee or the holder in due course of the cheque, as the case may be, makes a demand for the payment of the said amount of money by giving a notice in writing to the drawn of the cheque, within 15 days of the receipt of information by him from the bank regarding the return of the cheque as unpaid." 5. THE section, therefore, only provides that a notice inviting the attention of the drawer of the cheque towards bouncing of the cheque should be served and he should be called upon to make payment of the amount mentioned in the cheque, if these two conditions are satisfied, the notice cannot be said to be bad in law. Asking the petitioner to pay the amount within one week is of no consequence since every body is supposed to know law. The petition of complaint has certainly been filed after more than 15 days of service of each notice. It has been laid down by the Privy Council in case of Harihar Banerjee v. Ram Sashi Roy, ILR 46 Cal 858 that a notice is to be construed not with a desire to find fault which would render the notice defective but to be construed ut res majis valeat quam pereat (it may rather become operative than null. This view was affirmed by the Apex Court in case of Mangilal v. Subal chowdhury, AIR 1965 SC 101 . I, therefore, hold that the notice was valid. 6. THE next contention of the Id. petitioner's counsel is that since the company has neither been served with notice nor has been made an accused in the case, the prosecution is not competent. In case of Sheo Ratan Agarwal v. State of M.P. , AIR 1984 SC 1824 , it has been laid down that there is no statutory compulsion that the person-in- charge or any officer of the company may not be prosecuted unless he be ranged along side of the company itself. The Apex Court made the aforesaid observation while interpreting section 10 of the E. C. Act which runs thus :- "(1) If the person contravening an order made under section 3 is a company, every person who, at the time the contravention was committed, was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company as well as the company, shall be deemed to be guilty of the contravention and shall be liable to be proceeded against the punished accordingly : provided that nothing contained in this sub-section shall render any such person liable to any punishment if he proves that the contravention took place without his knowledge or that he exercised all due diligence to prevent such contravention. 2. 2. Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) where an offence under this At has been committed by a company and it is proved that the offence has been committed with the consent or connivance of, or is attributable to any neglect on the part of any director, manager, secretary or other officer of the company, such director, manager, secretary or other officer shall be liable to be prosecuted against and punished accordingly" the wordings of section 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act are almost identical. It, therefore, follows that the prosecution of petitioner without impleading the company, is valid and maintainable. It may also be noted that section 94 of the negotiable Instruments Act provides that notice of dishonour may be served on a duly authorised agent or the drawer of the cheque. Since the petitioner was authorised signatory of the company as well as a director, the service of notice on him would be a sufficient compliance of proviso (b) to Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. 7. THE ld. counsel for the petitioner has cited the case of Dalip Kumar Jaiswal v. Debashree, 1991 CCr LR (Cal) 171 : [vol. 1 DCTC 153] wherein it has been laid down that if a cheque issued on behalf of the company bounces, notice must be served on the company. This case appears to have been decided per incurium because the ld. Judges have not taken note or either section 94 of N. I. Act or the law laid down in Sheo Ratan Agarwal's case (supra. 8. THE last point urged by the ld. counsel for the petitioner is that since the alleged cheque was drawn on a Bank situated within the territorial jurisdiction of C. M. M. , calcutta, the Courts in Alipore or Sealdah has no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint and take cognizance of the offence. Admittedly, the complainant resides within the territorial jurisdiction of Alipore court. One of the ld. Single Judges of this Court, vide his order dated 31st July, 1991 in Cr. Rev. Admittedly, the complainant resides within the territorial jurisdiction of Alipore court. One of the ld. Single Judges of this Court, vide his order dated 31st July, 1991 in Cr. Rev. No. 807 of 1990 (M/s Andhra Cement Company Ltd. v. Shree Gopal Bajoria)laid down thus :- "from a plain reading of the said section (i.e. section 138) it is evidently clear that a person becomes liable for punishment thereunder for two things firstly issue of a cheque for the discharge, in whole or in part, of any debt or other liability and secondly fails to make they payment of the amount under the cheque inspite of a valid notice given by the payee in accordance with the Act. While the former is an 'act' the other is an 'illegal omission' which is an 'act' in view of its definition under the General Clauses Act. Under Section 178 (d) of the Code where an offence consists of several acts done in different local arrears, it may be enquired into or tried by a Court having jurisdiction over any such local areas. In the instant case, as admittedly the cheque was issued from Secundrabad, the first of the above two acts cannot be said to have been done in Calcutta, but then, as the materials on record including the complaint indicate that the payment was to be made in Calcutta in terms of the demand, it must be said that the failure to do so, that is to say, the illegal omission took place in Calcutta that the Court at calcutta has jurisdiction to try the case. " 9. ASSOCIATED Transport Co. v. P. S. R. Murthy's case, 97 Col. WN 111 : [vol. 1 DCTC 322] appears to have been decided on the special facts of the case. As regards the case relied upon by the petitioner namely Sarbanarayan Jha v. M/s. Khanpaul Chowdhury, 1991 C Cr LR (Cal) 311 wherein it has been laid down that the view that cause of action arises only where the drawer of the cheque resides is clearly erroneous in the might (light) of the law laid down in Andhra Cement case (supra) and also the well known principle that debtor should follow the creditor. Therefore, after the cheque bounced and notice of demand was served, the debtor was bound to pay the amount at the residence of creditor, within 15 days of receipt of the notice. Same is the view of Kerala High Court in case of Alex v. Vijayan, 1994 (1) Crimes 605 : [vol. 1 DCTC 594]. 10. I, therefore, hold that since the complainant resides within the territorial limits of the ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Sealdah, the A.C.J.M., Sealdah has power to make cognizance of the offence. I, therefore, dismiss all the revisional petitions. The interim orders are vacated. Petitions dismissed.