How to Send a Section 138 Cheque Bounce Demand Notice: 30-Day Deadline, Correct Service & the Drafting Defects That Get Cases Dismissed (2026)

To start a cheque bounce case, the payee must send a written demand notice to the drawer within 30 days of receiving the bank's cheque-return memo, demanding the exact cheque amount and giving the drawer 15 days to pay. Send it by registered post with acknowledgement due (plus speed post or email as backup) to the drawer's correct address — and if it comes back marked "refused" or "unclaimed", the law still treats it as served. Miss the 30-day window, demand the wrong amount, or use a stale address, and the complaint can be dismissed no matter how genuine the debt is.

This guide is written for the payee/complainant — the person who received the bounced cheque and must issue the notice. If instead you are the drawer who has received such a notice, see our companion guide on how to reply to a Section 138 cheque bounce legal notice. For the full end-to-end timeline of a cheque bounce prosecution, see the Section 138 cheque bounce procedure and time limits guide.

The Section 138 demand notice is a written statutory notice, sent by the payee within 30 days of the bank's dishonour memo, that informs the drawer the cheque has bounced and demands payment of the exact cheque amount within 15 days — and issuing a valid one is a mandatory precondition without which no cheque bounce complaint can be filed.

Under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, dishonour of a cheque for insufficiency of funds is punishable with imprisonment up to two years, or fine up to twice the cheque amount, or both — but the section's three provisos make the demand notice the gateway to that remedy. Get the notice wrong and the offence never crystallises.

What the demand notice must contain

A Section 138 notice is not a free-form angry letter. Proviso (b) to Section 138 requires you to make a demand for the payment of the said amount of money — and the Supreme Court has read "said amount" strictly.

Include, at minimum:

• The drawer's name and correct address (as per bank/KYC records where possible).
• The cheque number, date, amount, and drawee bank/branch.
• The date you presented the cheque and the date and reason of dishonour ("funds insufficient", "account closed", "payment stopped", etc.) as stated in the bank's return memo.
• The underlying legally enforceable debt or liability the cheque was issued for (a cheque given as a gift or for a time-barred debt is not covered).
• A clear demand for the exact cheque amount, and an express 15-day period to pay.

The single amount you demand as the cheque value must exactly match the cheque. In Suman Sethi v. Ajay K. Churiwal, (2000) 2 SCC 380 (indiankanoon.org/doc/72800), the Supreme Court held that the demand for the cheque amount must be unambiguous; you may additionally claim interest, notice costs or damages, but only if they are separately itemised so the cheque amount stands out. A lumped-together "omnibus" demand — where the cheque figure is fused with interest and costs into one blended sum — can invalidate the notice. Later Supreme Court rulings have gone further, treating even a wrong figure caused by a typographical error as fatal, so proofread the amount against the cheque before you send.

The 30-day deadline — and how to count it correctly

The notice must be despatched within 30 days of the date you receive the bank's intimation of dishonour — not the cheque date, and not the date you deposited it. The clock starts when the return memo reaches you.

How you count those 30 days matters. In Econ Antri Ltd v. Rom Industries Ltd, (2014) 11 SCC 769, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that the day on which the dishonour intimation is received is excluded when computing the statutory period (applying Section 9 of the General Clauses Act, 1897). So if the bank memo reaches you on 1 August, day one is 2 August and the 30th day is 31 August. When in doubt, send early — there is no reward for using the full window.

How to serve the notice correctly

Service is where technically sound notices go to die. Acceptable modes include registered post with acknowledgement due (RPAD), speed post, courier with proof of delivery, and email where you can prove receipt. The safest practice among practising advocates is to send by RPAD and speed post simultaneously, and retain the postal receipts, the tracking printout, and the acknowledgement card.

Why RPAD? Because the presumptions the law gives you attach to registered post. The Karnataka High Court has confirmed that service through registered post is proper service under Section 138 and that there is no separate requirement to also serve under certificate of posting. Always send to the drawer's correct and current address; a notice to a stale or wrong address gets you none of the deemed-service benefits below.

What if the notice is refused, unclaimed or returned?

This is the scenario drawers most often exploit — and where most complainants wrongly assume their case has collapsed. It has not.

A properly addressed registered-post notice that is returned "refused", "unclaimed", "addressee not available", "house locked" or "shop closed" is deemed to have been served. In C.C. Alavi Haji v. Palapetty Muhammed, (2007) 6 SCC 555 (indiankanoon.org/doc/272690), a three-judge Bench held that once the sender despatches the notice by post to the correct address, Section 27 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 raises a presumption of service, and it is for the drawer to prove it was not really served. The Court also clarified the drawer's escape hatch: a drawer who claims he never got the notice can still avoid conviction by paying the cheque amount within 15 days of receiving the court summons — so genuine non-receipt is not a licence to default.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in N. Parameswaran Unni v. G. Kannan, (2017) 5 SCC 737, holding that a notice sent by registered post to the correct address and returned unserved satisfies proviso (b) by deemed service. Practical takeaway: annex the returned envelope with the postal endorsement to your complaint — that unopened, "refused"-stamped cover is often your strongest piece of evidence.

After the notice: the 15-day wait, then the complaint

Once the notice is served (or deemed served), the cause of action does not arise immediately. You must wait out the 15-day payment window. Only if the drawer fails to pay the cheque amount within 15 days of receiving the notice does the offence under Section 138 complete.

Then the payee has a one-month window under Section 142(1)(b) of the NI Act to file a written complaint before the competent Magistrate (a court can condone delay for sufficient cause under the proviso). Note the recovery/deterrence teeth added in recent years: under Section 143A, the trial court may order the drawer to pay interim compensation of up to 20% of the cheque amount even before conviction, and under Section 148, an appellate court may require a convicted drawer to deposit a minimum of 20% before the appeal is heard — see our note on appealing a cheque bounce conviction and the Section 148 deposit.

Cheque bounce prosecutions are the single largest category of pending criminal litigation in India — the Supreme Court, in its 2021 suo motu order In Re: Expeditious Trial of Cases Under Section 138 of the NI Act, (2021) 16 SCC 116, noted that more than 33 lakh such cases were pending nationwide. Getting the notice right is the cheapest possible way to keep your case out of the dismissal pile.

Can you re-present the cheque or send a fresh notice?

Yes — within limits. If a cheque bounces, you may present it again (while it is still valid) and, on a second dishonour, issue a fresh notice and prosecute on that cause of action. In MSR Leathers v. S. Palaniappan, (2013) 1 SCC 177 (indiankanoon.org/doc/110319578), the Supreme Court held there is nothing in Section 138 barring successive presentation and prosecution on a subsequent dishonour, overruling the earlier Sadanandan Bhadran view. What you cannot do is send multiple notices on the same dishonour to reset the clock — the cause of action arises once per dishonour.

The defects that get cheque bounce cases dismissed

Before you send, run this checklist. Each item below has sunk real complaints:

• Late notice — despatched after the 30-day window (wrongly counted from cheque date or deposit date).
• Wrong amount — demand does not exactly match the cheque, or the cheque figure is buried in an omnibus lump sum.
• Wrong/stale address — defeats the deemed-service presumption.
• No clear 15-day demand — the notice "informs" but does not squarely demand payment within 15 days.
• No legally enforceable debt pleaded — cheque issued as security, gift, or for a time-barred debt.
• Premature complaint — filed before the 15-day period expired.
• Lost proof of service — no RPAD receipt, tracking, or returned envelope retained.

Do you need an advocate — and what does it cost?

You can draft and send the notice yourself, but because the notice is a strict statutory precondition, most payees have an advocate settle it. A cheque bounce demand notice typically costs anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand rupees to have drafted, plus postal charges; the bigger cost is the downstream litigation if the notice is defective and you have to start over. For a straightforward, single-cheque matter with clean documents, a carefully drafted DIY notice that follows the rules above can be enough to trigger payment — many drawers pay within the 15 days rather than face prosecution. Bring in an advocate where the debt is disputed, the amount is large, there are multiple cheques, or the drawer has a history of evasive service.

How Urava helps

Urava turns a bounced-cheque fact pattern into a court-ready, citation-backed research memo in about 10 minutes — the statutory deadlines, the exact-amount rule, the deemed-service case law, and the complaint window, all grounded in verifiable sources rather than free-recall. You can type the facts in English, Hindi or Malayalam, or upload a scanned bank return memo and legal notice, and get a structured memo you can rely on before you draft and despatch. It is WhatsApp-native and priced per research (free for your first 3), so a junior advocate or a litigant-in-person can check the procedure without a ₹40,000/year database subscription. When you win and the drawer still does not pay, the next step is enforcement — see our guide to filing an execution petition for a money decree under Order 21 CPC; and if the matter settles, see compounding a Section 138 case. Start free at urava.app/register →

Frequently Asked Questions

Within how many days must I send a Section 138 cheque bounce notice?

Within 30 days of receiving the bank's cheque-return (dishonour) memo. The day you receive the intimation is excluded when counting, per Econ Antri Ltd v. Rom Industries Ltd, (2014) 11 SCC 769. If you miss the 30-day window, that particular cause of action lapses, though you may be able to re-present the still-valid cheque and issue a fresh notice on the next dishonour.

What is the correct way to serve a Section 138 demand notice?

Send it by registered post with acknowledgement due (RPAD) to the drawer's correct address, ideally also by speed post, and keep the receipts, tracking record and acknowledgement. Registered post is proper service under Section 138, and you do not additionally need certificate of posting. Retain any returned envelope — it is key evidence of deemed service.

The drawer refused or did not collect my notice — is my case over?

No. A notice properly addressed and sent by registered post that returns "refused", "unclaimed" or "addressee not available" is deemed served under Section 27 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 (C.C. Alavi Haji v. Palapetty Muhammed, (2007) 6 SCC 555). The burden shifts to the drawer to prove genuine non-receipt, and the drawer can still avoid liability only by paying within 15 days of the court summons.

What amount should the demand notice claim?

It must demand the exact cheque amount. Under Suman Sethi v. Ajay K. Churiwal, (2000) 2 SCC 380, the demand for the cheque amount must be unambiguous; you can separately add interest, notice costs or damages, but the cheque figure must be clearly stated on its own. A blended omnibus demand — or even a typo in the amount — can invalidate the notice.

What happens after the 15-day payment period ends?

If the drawer does not pay the cheque amount within 15 days of receiving the notice, the offence under Section 138 is complete, and you may file a written complaint before the Magistrate within one month under Section 142(1)(b). Do not file before the 15 days expire — a premature complaint is liable to be dismissed.

Can I send more than one demand notice for the same bounced cheque?

You can re-present a valid cheque and, on a fresh dishonour, issue a new notice and prosecute on that cause of action (MSR Leathers v. S. Palaniappan, (2013) 1 SCC 177). But you cannot fire off repeated notices on a single dishonour to reset the limitation clock — the cause of action arises once per dishonour.