Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881
Section 20, NI Act: Inchoate stamped instruments
Section 20 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, in the Act's own words.
The section
20. Inchoate stamped instruments.
Where one person signs and delivers to another a paper stamped in accordance with the law relating to negotiable instruments then in force in 1[India], and either wholly blank or having written thereon an incomplete negotiable instrument, he thereby gives prima facie authority to the holder thereof to make or complete, as the case may be, upon it a negotiable instrument, for any amount specified therein and not exceeding the amount covered by the stamp. The person so signing shall be liable upon such instrument, in the capacity in which he signed the same, to any holder in due course for such amount: provided that no person other than a holder in due course shall recover from the person delivering the instrument anything in excess of the amount intended by him to be paid thereunder.The text is India Code's consolidated text as loaded into Pundora's statute corpus on 1 September 2026; a number before a square bracket is India Code's own footnote marker for an amendment. A section quoted in a draft checked by Pundora is checked against this text.
Sources
- India Code: Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, section 20 (read 1 September 2026)