Cheques encashed wrongly/fraudulently would squarely fall within the ambit of a ‘debt’ under Section 2(g) of RDB Act, 1993 and enables the Bank wrongly deprived their money to recover it – Bank of Baroda Vs. Mr Ramesh C. Bhuptani & Ors. – DRAT Mumbai
DRAT held that the defendants Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 7 to 9 had received the amount in their accounts consequent to the presentation of the cheques to the Appellant Bank and were and enriched by the amounts they received. The cheques were wrongly/fraudulently encashed by them, even though it may not be with their active participation in the fraud, they had been recipients of the amount fraudulently from the Appellant Bank. Under the circumstances, the amount that they received would squarely fall within the ambit of a ‘debt’ under Sec. 2(g) and enables the Bank wrongly deprived their money to recover it. In case the said defendants had received money that was legally due to them from others, their remedy to recover that amount lies elsewhere and not by fraudulent means deployed to extract money from the bank undeservedly. It may also be true that they were not guilty of fraud themselves or may even have been victims of the fraud, but that would not permit them to defend their case and retain the illegally earned money that comes into their account from the Appellant Bank.