Mumbai: 

litigation: A cheque-bouncing case of Rs 10 crore was filed against Sridevi in 2007

The courts have made it that tad bit easier for you to recover your money in a cheque-bouncing case. The high court has decided to have 20 more magistrate courts to deal specifically in cheque-bouncing cases.

Currently, even though there are 57 courts for such cases, there are still 1,76,126 cases still pending as of June.

On July 4, Mrudula Bhatkar, the registrar general of the high court, informed the chief metropolitan magistrate about this decision and asked for a report on infrastructure requirements to set up the courts.

But this addition has come too late for some. Devendra Shah, spokesperson for Shah Raichand Kantilal Finvest and Real Estate Private Limited, which had filed a cheque-bouncing case against former Miss India and actress Sonu Walia, said, "We had to recover more than Rs 5 lakh. Since 2004, we spent a couple of lakhs, but without any result. Finally we opted for an out-of-case settlement, where she has agreed to pay a sum of Rs 3.5 lakh."

Even Anand Mishra who filed a cheque-bouncing case against actress Sridevi in 2007 is not particularly impressed. He has still not recover the sum of Rs 10 crore. "I have been fighting the case for a year now, and still don't see any relief in sight," he said. 

Backlog 

- In 2005, the court had already separated 15 courts of the total 57 magistrate courts to deal with the cheque-bouncing cases. In the first year, the court disposed of around 90,294 cases, but at the year's end, it still had 1,08,758 cases pending.

- In 2006, the courts disposed of 35,519 cases. However, the pending  cases increased to  1,27,585.

- In 2007, in spite of disposing of 40,435 cases, the number of the pending cases went up to 1,51,759.
This year, only 19,691 cases have been disposed till May, where as the  pending cases till June  are 1,76,126.