The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 · Ch. VIII — OF NOTICE OF DISHONOUR
A promissory note, bill of exchange or cheque is said to be dishonoured by non-payment when the maker of the note, acceptor of the bill or drawee of the cheque makes default in payment upon being duly required to pay the same.
Sections of the NI are not classified one by one by any First Schedule. Part II of the First Schedule to the BNSS classifies offences under every other law by the punishment they carry — and the CRPC’s First Schedule sets out the same three bands.
If punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for more than 7 years.
If punishable with imprisonment for 3 years and upwards but not more than 7 years.
If punishable with imprisonment for less than 3 years or with fine only.
Read it against the punishment in the section above. Vidhara does not place a section in a band for you — that turns on the exact wording of its punishment, which is the section’s to say and not ours.
And a special or local law may provide otherwise: see BNSS section 5, which saves any special jurisdiction, power or procedure another law lays down.
Source & version
Official text: India Code (official) ↗
Official India Code text: The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (26 of 1881), English PDF (bitstream 123456789/15327/1/negotiable_instruments_act,_1881.pdf, 681,124 bytes, sha256 50fe22a1…) fetched directly from indiacode.nic.in (Akamai edge, DNS via dns.google) on 2026-07-29. Extracted via pdftotext 26.07 -bbox and @nexlex/ingest gazette parser. Automated parse; footnotes/amendment history excluded; spot-verified (s. 138 cheque dishonour); full clause-level proofread pending.
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