Punishment for cheque bounce is nothing new but what is making news is the new ruling made by RBI that punishment can also be imposed if the ECS mandate bounces. With the advent of Internet Banking most people have used the ECS method to pay their loan EMI’s, monthly utility bills etc. What ECS does is simple, it automatically debits the required amount from your bank account as per your mandate.
Until now, there was no specific information on how to deal with situations where an ECS mandate has arrived for clearance but the account doesn’t have sufficient funds. Now, RBI has made it clear that ECS can be seen on par with post dated cheques and hence the same punishment can be imposed on ECS bounce cases as in Cheque bounce cases as per Negotiable Instruments Act.
So if you have any account with active ECS mandates, please be sure that it has sufficient funds or else, a case might be filed against you and even put in to jail, just saying.
