6. The submission of the complainant thereby seeking permission to file an amended memo of parties, to implead the company as an accused is misconceived inasmuch as the complaint is to be mandatorily proceeded by steps as stipulated in proviso to Section 138, which must be fulfilled before the offence is said to be made out. The first condition is that the cheque ought to be presented to the bank within a period of six months from the date on which it is drawn or within the period of its validity, whichever is earlier. The second condition is that the payee or the holder in due course of the cheque, as the case may be, must make a demand for the said money by giving a notice in writing to the drawer of the cheque within 30 days of receiving the information from the bank regarding the dishonour of the cheque. The third condition states that there should be a failure on the part of the drawer of cheque to make the payment of the amount under the cheque to the payee or the holder in due course, as the case may be, within 15 days of the receipt of the said notice. When all these three conditions are fulfilled, then only an offence under Section 138 of the NI Act can be said to be committed by the person issuing the cheque [Ref: MSR Leathers v. S. Palaniappan&Anr.5 , Charanjit Pal Jindal v. L.N. Metalics6 and N. Harihara Krishnan v. J. Thomas.7 ]
