Banks to face action for freezing a/cmerely on police request, rules HC | Lucknow News
Lucknow: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad high court on Thursday said that if a bank freezes the bank account of any person or organisation merely on the request of the police without following the legal process, the bank will have to face civil and criminal consequences.A division bench of Justices Shekhar B. Saraf and Manjeev Shukla passed the above observation on a petition filed by a medical store chain. The petitioner had stated that his Axis Bank account was frozen after the Rachakonda police of Hyderabad issued a notice claiming that money had been fraudulently transferred to the account of the petitioner from the account of a victim of a cybercrime FIR registered at the relevant police station. During the hearing, the bank’s counsel admitted that they received a debit freeze notice in November 2025, but no formal seizure order or specific information regarding the amount to be frozen has yet been provided. Commenting on the matter, the court said that the notice issued to the bank did not specify any amount. Furthermore, despite repeated requests by the bank to the investigating officer, neither a copy of the FIR nor a formal seizure order was provided to the bank. Consequently, the petitioner’s account cannot be frozen. The court ordered the immediate de-freezing of the account. The HC bench issued guidelines stating that information regarding the freezing of a bank account by the investigating officer should be immediately sent to the nodal officer of the bank or payment service system so that they can take necessary action. The court also directed that a copy of any notice regarding account blocking should also be sent to the judicial magistrate of the jurisdiction for information.
