Jodhpur:<\/strong> The Rajasthan High Court has upheld the power of banks and investigating agencies to freeze bank accounts linked to suspected cyber-fraud transactions, while making it clear that such freezing cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Sameer Jain considered a batch of petitions, including Smt. Gita Devi v. Managing Director & CEO, UCO Bank, challenging the freezing of bank accounts on the basis of cyber-fraud alerts. Gita Devi, a resident of Borawad, Nagaur, had approached the Court against the freezing of her UCO Bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The central dispute was whether authorities could immediately freeze a person’s bank account, without prior notice, merely because it had been flagged in connection with a suspected cyber-fraud transaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The petitioners questioned the legality of such action, particularly where the account holder claimed to be unconnected with the alleged fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court held that immediate freezing can be necessary as a preventive measure to prevent suspected fraud proceeds from being transferred or siphoned off. It clarified that such freezing is an investigative measure to preserve suspected proceeds of crime and does not, by itself, establish criminal liability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the Court made it clear that authorities cannot keep an account frozen indefinitely. The freeze must be limited to the suspected transaction, reviewed regularly, and lifted once the prescribed time limit expires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For dealing with grievances arising from such freezes, the Court relied upon the 02 January 2026 Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SOP provides a time-bound grievance redressal mechanism, including designated State and District Grievance Officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The High Court accordingly disposed of the petitions, granting the petitioners liberty to avail the remedies available under the SOP and other applicable statutory provisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HC Upholds Immediate Freezing of Accounts to Protect Suspected Fraud Proceeds, Says Restraint Must Be Proportionate, Reviewed and Time-Bound Jodhpur: The Rajasthan High Court has upheld the power of banks and investigating agencies to freeze bank accounts linked to suspected cyber-fraud transactions, while making it clear that such freezing cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wppp_is_locked":false,"_wppp_selected_plans":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-rajasthan-high-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9418,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416\/revisions\/9418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Court Allows Immediate Freezing to Prevent Suspected Fraud Proceeds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Freezing Is Preventive, Not Proof of Criminal Liability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Restraint Must Be Proportionate and Time-Bound<\/h3>\n\n\n\n