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2024 Supreme(Mad) 2395

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
G.Jayachandran,
Mohammed Saifullah – Appellant
Versus
Reserve Bank of India, Rep. by its Governor – Respondent


Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Petitioner: Mr. Kably Taiyab Khan
For the Respondent:Mr. S. Udayakumar, Government Advocate, Mr. C. Mohan

Judgement Key Points

Based on the legal document provided, here are the key points with their corresponding references:

  • Issue with unilateral freezing: The freezing of bank accounts on instruction from local police or the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal often catches account holders by surprise, causing significant damage to their daily financial lives and severing their business lifelines before the reason for the freeze is understood (!) .
  • Requirement for transparency and notification: While statutes empower agencies to freeze accounts, courts have held that accounts cannot be frozen perpetually without informing the account holder of the reason and the extent of the freeze, noting frequent failures by agencies to intimate account holders or the jurisdictional court (!) .
  • Specific case facts: In this case, the petitioner's account was frozen by the bank following instructions from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and the Telangana Cyber Crime Bureau regarding a cryptocurrency investigation, where the suspected amount was approximately Rs. 2,48,835/- (!) .
  • Disproportionate freezing: Although only a specific sum was suspected, the bank froze the entire account balance (Rs. 9,69,580/-), and neither the investigating agency nor the bank informed the petitioner of the reasons or the duration of the freeze for over a year (!) .
  • Need for guidelines: Previous court orders have directed police commissioners to issue circulars ensuring no colorable exercise of power during account freezing, yet these guidelines are often not observed in practice (!) .
  • Precedents and alternative measures: Courts have referenced Supreme Court judgments (e.g., M.T. Enrica Lexie, Teesta Atul Setalvad, Shento Varghese) to direct account holders to execute bond undertakings to deposit amounts if found to be tainted money, rather than blanket freezing (!) .
  • Violation of fundamental rights: Freezing an entire account without quantifying the specific amount or the time period violates fundamental rights related to trade, business, and livelihood (!) .
  • Court's final direction: The court directed the bank to de-freeze the account and place a lien only over the specific suspected sum of Rs. 2,50,000/-, permitting the petitioner to operate the account while ensuring a minimum balance of that amount is maintained (!) .

ORDER :

G. Jayachandran, J.

The issue by many of the citizens currently face is the freezing of the account on instruction from the local Police or from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. Many a times, the account holders have been taken into surprise that by such order of freezing, before they could realize as to why and for what purpose the accounts are freezed, enough damages are caused to their day to day financial life, since the very life- line of the business gets severed by such unilateral orders of account freezing passed by the Police.

2. No doubt, the statutes empower the investigation agency to request the Bank to freeze the account pending investigation and intimate it forthwith to the jurisdiction Court, but whether the power is properly exercised or not is the moot question now looming large and in the several judgments of the Courts across the India, it had been categorically held that there cannot be freezing of account perpectually without intimating the account holders what for their account is freezed and what extent it has to be freezed. Even then, day in and day out, this Court receives applications to defreeze the account pointing out the failure of the

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