Most EMI defaults today aren't cheques at all. Auto-debit mandates — NACH and ECS — dominate loan collection, and a bounced mandate is not a "cheque" under the Negotiable Instruments Act. It's governed instead by Section 25 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, which applies Chapter XVII of the NI Act — the same notice procedure, the same 15-day cure period, the same punishment — to electronic transfer dishonour. Courts, including the Delhi High Court in Ritu Jain v. State (2019), have confirmed this applies to ECS mandate bounces specifically. Treating a NACH default as if it needs a different process, or worse, as if it isn't actionable, is a common and costly mistake.

Your cases may not need to be scattered across the country. Under the 2015 amendment to Section 142 of the NI Act, jurisdiction lies with the court where the payee's bank branch — the one used for presentment — is situated. Where collection is routed through a centralized account, this can mean defaults from borrowers across several states are filed at a single jurisdiction rather than pursued separately in each borrower's home city. This depends entirely on your specific banking and collection architecture, and is worth reviewing early rather than after hundreds of notices have already gone out under the wrong assumption.