The Telangana High Court has ruled that freezing a citizen’s bank account without proper justification or a clear link to a cognizable offence amounts to a serious infringement of fundamental rights.
Justice E V Venugopal has observed that arbitrary and mechanical freezing of bank accounts undermines the protection guaranteed under Articles 21 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India, as such actions directly affect an individual’s right to life, personal liberty, and the freedom to carry on trade or occupation.
The petitioner, Kandibanda Sridhar, the owner of Bottle Restaurant and Bar, Khammam, challenged the freezing of his bank account following instructions issued by the cybercrime unit of Etawah, Uttar Pradesh. The account, maintained at Kotak Mahindra Bank, had been frozen despite the petitioner not being named in the FIR and without prior notice.
The court noted that although only a specific transaction amount was under scrutiny, authorities had frozen the entire account, preventing the petitioner from accessing funds required for routine business operations.
Emphasising that investigating agencies may request banks to freeze accounts during a probe with prompt intimation to the jurisdictional magistrate, the court directed that only the disputed amount remain on hold and ordered the immediate defreezing of the account, while instructing the superintendent of police, Etawah, to communicate the order to the bank and ensure compliance without delay.