Below Order of Madras High Court, clears some of the doubt with respect to Blank Cheques: Can be used by defense in such cases.
15. The Lahore High Court in A.R. DOWER v. SOHAN LAL (AIR 1937 Lahore 816) has held that section 20 relating to the encashability of the inchoate stamped instrument will not apply to the cheque as it does not require stamp. Following the aforesaid ratio, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in C.T.JOSEPH v. I.V.PHILIP (AIR 2001 KERALA 300) has observed that section 20 of the Negotiable Instruments Act will not apply to the cheque which does not require any stamp under the Stamp Act and the aforesaid provision would apply to other incomplete, inchoate instruments which require stamp under the Stamp Act.
16. This court in S.GOPAL v. D.BALACHANDRAN (2008(1) CTC 491) has observed that a bare reading of section 20 of the Negotiable Instruments Act would go to show that it would apply only to a stamped instrument viz., pronote and bill of exchange and not to the cheques. Therefore, section 20 will have no application to the cheques issued after signing by the drawer. It has been further observed therein as follows:- " .... there is no law which prescribes that a cheque shall be filled up by the drawer himself. If such proposition is accepted, no unlettered person, who knows only to sign his name, can ever be a drawer of a cheque. Further, a person who is physically incapacitated to fill up the cheque cannot also draw a cheque and negotiate it. Of course, as far as the other negotiable instruments viz., pronotes and bills of exchange, there is a clear mandate under section 20 of the Negotiable Instruments Act to the effect that such an instrument can be negotiated by the maker thereof by simply signing and delivering the same to the holder in due course giving thereby ample authority to the latter to fill up the content of the instrument as intended by the maker thereof.
10. Even in case of a cheque, as there is no clear provision in the Negotiable Instruments Act, in the light of the above discussion, the court finds that if a drawer of a cheque gives authority to the payee or holder in due course or a stranger for that matter to fill up the cheque signed by him, such an instrument also is valid in the eye of law. There is no bar for the drawer of a cheque to give authority to a third person to fill up the cheque signed by him for the purpose of negotiating the same."
