Hon‟ble Supreme Court in A.C.Narayanan v. State of Maharashtra (2014) 11 SCC 790 where it was held as under:
“26) While holding that there is no serious conflict between the CRL. M.C. 2385/2022 Page 9 of 13 decisions in MMTC (supra) and Janki Vashdeo Bhojwani
(supra), we clarify the position and answer the questions in the following manner:
(i) Filing of complaint petition under Section 138 of N. I. Act through power of attorney is perfectly
legal and competent.
(ii) The Power of Attorney holder can depose and verify on oath before the Court in order to prove the contents of the complaint. However, the power of attorney holder must have witnessed the transaction as an agent of the payee/holder in due course or possess due knowledge regarding the said transactions.
(iii) It is required by the complainant to make specific assertion as to the knowledge of the power of attorney holder in the said transaction explicitly in
the complaint and the power of attorney holder who has no knowledge regarding the transactions cannot be examined as a witness in the case.
(iv) In the light of section 145 of N.I. Act, it is open to the Magistrate to rely upon the verification in the form of affidavit filed by the complainant in
support of the complaint under Section 138 of the N.I. Act and the Magistrate is neither mandatorily obliged to call upon the complainant to remain
present before the Court, nor to examine the complainant of his witness upon oath for taking the decision whether or not to issue process on the
complaint under Section 138 of the N.I. Act.
(v) The functions under the general power of attorney cannot be delegated to another person without specific clause permitting the same in the power
of attorney. Nevertheless, the general power of CRL. M.C. 2385/2022 Page 10 of 13 attorney itself can be cancelled and be given to
another person.”
Apart from what has been stated, this Court in the case of Vidhyadhar v. Manikrao observed at SCC pp. 58384, para 17 that:
“17. Where a party to the suit does not appear in the witness box and states his own case on oath and does not offer himself to be crossexamined by the other
side, a presumption would arise that the case set up by him is not correct….”
