In appropriate cases the magistrate can allow an accused to make even the first appearance through a counsel
There cannot be any dispute that the order granting exemption was nothing but an interlocutory one and so was the order of revocation of the exemption granted. Such orders do not determine the rights of the parties finally but are of interim nature passed during the proceedings of trial.
The law regarding grant of personal exemption to an accused under Section 138 of the Act has been discussed by the Hon‟ble Supreme Court in Bhaskar Industries Ltd. (Supra),
"These are days when prosecutions for the offence under Section 138 are galloping up in criminal courts. Due to the increase of inter-State transactions through the facilities of the banks it is not uncommon that when prosecutions are instituted in one State the accused might belong to a different State, sometimes a far distant State. Not very rarely such accused would be ladies also. For prosecution under Section 138 of the NI Act the trial should be that of summons case. When a magistrate feels that insistence of personal attendance of the accused in a summons case, in a particular situation, would inflict enormous hardship and cost to a particular accused, it is open to the magistrate to consider how he can relieve such an accused of the great hardships, without causing prejudice to the prosecution proceedings.
