The Court directed prompt investigation completion and emphasized the need for a charge-sheet to clarify the petitioner's involvement in alleged offenses.

O R D E R

This Writ Petition has been filed seeking for issuance of Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus, to quash the impugned notice vide Letter No.360/CCB/TBM/2023, dated 23.08.2023 issued by the first respondent for debit freezing the Bank account of the petitioner Company bearing Account No.231005501744 maintained with respondent No.2 and consequently, to direct the respondents to unfreeze the bank account of the petitioner.

2. According to the petitioner-Company, they are engaged in the business of Data Processing Hosting and related activities registered with Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME). For operation of their business, a Bank account bearing No.231005501744 was maintained with the second respondent - ICICI Bank, Ghodasar, Ahmedabad, Gurajt. While that being so, the first respondent vide impugned notice dated 23.08.2023 directed the second respondent to debit freeze the account of the petitioner, which was maintained with them, by stating that as one Mohandass was cheated for an amount of Rs.69,90,000/-, in which, the petitioner's ICICI Bank account is said to be involved. Thereby, the second respondent-Bank debit frozen the account of the petitioner. It is further submitted that no enquiry has been conducted, even post freezing the account of the petitioner. Therefore, the petitioner made a representation dated 27.09.2023 to the first respondent requesting to defreeze the account of the petitioner, but there was no response from them. Hence, the present petition.

3. Learned Additional Public Prosecutor appearing for the first respondent by referring to the counter affidavit submitted that one Mohandass lodged a complaint alleging that he was cheated an amount to the tune of of Rs.69,90,000/- during the period from 28.09.2022 to 19.10.2022 by unknown persons through online trading. Based on the said complaint, the first respondent-Police registered a case in Crime No.247 of 2023 for the offence under Section 420 IPC and Section 66D Information and Technology Act. Subsequently first respondent-Police sent notice to the Bank in which the said Mohandass transferred his money as per the inducement of the Cyber Crime fraudsters to debit freeze the account and to get Know Your Customer (KYC), Account Opening Form (AOF) and Statement of accounts. In order to stop the usage of same Bank accounts by the Cyber Crime fraudsters, those accounts were frozen by the Bank authorities. The victim / de-facto complainant transferred money from his ICICI Bank A/c No.106201501463 and Kotak Mahindra Bank A/c No.4746426602 to the fraudsters' accounts in the Bank namely YES Bank A/c No.046163300003125, A/c No.021463300003800, A/c No.102863300000352, A/c No.116985800000417 and UPI ID wegj2080@upi, mohamadr@ybl, totally through 21 transactions to the tune of Rs.69,90,000/-. Further, the Cyber Crime fraudsters have transferred the amount of Rs.69,90,000/- to other Bank accounts in many layers for easy withdrawal. It is further submitted that during investigation, the first respondent-Police arrested one Priyanshu Sharma @ Nikhil and he has confessed that Rohit and Shubham, are his close associates and all of them involved in the alleged offence and that they seized the signed cheque leaves belonging to one Shubham, who is the proprietor of the petitioner-Company from Priyanshu Sharma. Based on his confession and evidence, the first respondent-Police sent notice to the second respondent-Bank to debit freeze the Bank Account No.231005501744. On a perusal of the documents submitted by the Bank, it would reveal that the said Bank account number