Madras High Court
B.Kalyan vs The State Of Tamil Nadu on 20 June, 2025
Author: P.Velmurugan
Bench: P.Velmurugan
W.P.No.7993 of 2025
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
DATED: 20-06-2025
CORAM:
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE P.VELMURUGAN
Writ Petition No.7993 of 2025 and W.M.P.Nos.8970 and 8971 of 2025
B.Kalyan .. Petitioner
Vs
1. The State Of Tamil Nadu
Rep by its Principal Secretary To Government, Department Of Home,
Fort St. George, Chennai-600 009.
2. Union of India, represented by its Principal Secretary to Government of India,
Ministry of Home Affairs, Secretariat, New Delhi.
3. The Reserve Bank of India, Rep. by its Chief General Manager, Secretary,
Secretaries Department, 16th Floor, Central Office Building, Shahid Bhagat Marg,
Mumbai-400 001. Maharashtra State.
4. Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS),
Rep. by Principal Secretary, Home Affairs, Secretariat, New Dellhi.
5. The Branch Manager, HDFC Bank Ltd., ITC Centre,
Anna Salai, 759, ITC Centre, Anna Salai, Opp.TVS, Chennai-600002 002.
6. The Director and Inspector General of Police, Mylapore, Chennai-600 004.
7. The Station House Officer, Cyber Crime Police Station,
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, Telangana State.
8. The Inspector of Police, Hanamkonda Police Station, Warangal
Commissionerate, Hanak Konda, Telangana State.
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W.P.No.7993 of 2025
9. The Station House Officer, Siddipet I-Town Police Station,
Siddipet, Telangana State.
10. The Superintendent of Police, Cyber Security Bureau, Hyderabad,
Telangana State.
11. The Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime Police Station, Cyderabad
Commissionerate, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana State.
12. The State House Officer, Cyber Economic and Narcotic Crime Police Station,
East Division, Broadway Road, Shivaji Nagar,
Bangalore-560 051. Karnataka State.
13. Station House Officer, Cyber Crime Police Station, Rajkot City, Gujarat State.
14. The Station House Officer, Cyber Crime Police Station,
Malappuram, Kerala State.
15. The Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime Police Station, Outer District,
New Delhi. .. Respondents
For Petitioner(s): M/s.M.Thiyagarajan, C.Karthik and M.Ganesh Babu
For Respondent(s):
Dr.C.E.Pratap, Govt. Advocate (Criminal Side) for RR-
1&6
Mr.L.J.Vengatesh, CGSC for RR-2 and 4
Mr.C.Mohan and MS.A.Rexy Josephine Mary for
M/s.King & Patridge for R-5
RR-3 and RR-7 to 15 - Not ready in notice
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W.P.No.7993 of 2025
ORDER
The petitioner has filed the present Writ Petition praying for issuance of a
Writ of Mandamus to direct the fifth respondent bearing Account
No.50100105332203 in freezing the petitioner's Account by lien mark, of
Rs.2,00,000/- at the instance of any respondents 7 to 15 Police stations without
there being any cause or case against the petitioner is illegal, arbitrary, without
jurisdiction and also opposed to all cannons of justice as well as in violation of
Articles 14, 19(1)(g), 21 and 300-A of the Constitution of India and
consequently direct the fifth respondent to lift the lien and de-freeze the
petitioner's account No.50100105332203 by allowing the petitioner to operate
his Savings Account which is salaried account.
2. Short facts that led to the filing of this Writ Petition are as under:
(a) The petitioner is an Engineering Graduate and working as Software
Engineer in Bangalore and he opened the Bank Accounts with the fifth
respondent/Bank while he was working in Chennai. Thereafter, he changed the
Company to Bangalore and maintaining the fifth respondent's HDFC Bank
Account No.50100105332203 and the same is using as his Salary Account and
also availed personal loan from HDFC Bank and Axis Bank Rs.35,00,000/- and
Rs.24,91,000/- respectively in total amount of Rs.59,91,000/- on 13.01.2023 and
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19.01.2023 and the said Bank disbursed his loan amount to his accounts as
stated above.
(b) The petitioner did on-line trading only through fifth respondent-Bank
Account. The petitioner did on-line trading with meagre profits on day-to-day
transaction basis till he gets the registration with the Government of India under
MSME under the category of advertising and market research. The petitioner
used to trade Crypto Coin through BINANCE, which is authorised on-line
platform, and the petitioner purchased Crypto Coins with the RPFAS
Technologies Private Limited, alias MUDREX as a KYC registered user and sold
the Crypto coins through BINANCE on-line plat-form only.
(c) The petitioner submits that the RPFAS Technologies Private Limited,
alias Mudrex is a recognised leading Company, which deals with digital assets at
Crypto Coins and he has purchased digital assets (Crypto coins0 from RPFAS
Technologies Pvt. Ltd., through Invoice dated 22.06.2023 to 12.07.2023. The
petitioner did on-line trading by advertising the assets on BINANCE on-line plat-
form. Accordingly, the buyer made request to buy coins for a quantity of his
choice by transferring amount into the fifth respondent's Bank Account.
(d) To the utter shock and surprise, he noticed that his Bank Account,
which is using also as Salary Account, is freezed. He made complaint to the
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customer care to his Bank and thereafter, in turn the petitioner received mail
from the Manager of the respective Bank stating that the petitioner's Account is
freezed by them on oral information from the respondents 7 to 15. The
respondents 7 to 15 have given letter/notice by way of e-mail communication to
the fifth respondent stating that the lien the amount and freeze the account. The
account has been freezed and marked amount as lien by way of letter and oral
communication without any intimation.
(e) The petitioner purchased 67,873.30 of Crypto Coins by paying
Rs.60,00,000/- including GST on 13.07.2023. The petitioner has no other choice
to know about the nature of source of funds the buyer transferred the amount to
the petitioner's account, since the same is on-line multi-layer transaction, being a
third layer transferee, since the petitioner has no relationship with the buyer,
except only for trade transactions, which is done through on-line. The petitioner
has sent reply to respondents 7 to 15 stating that he has not committed any
mistake requesting to de-freeze and remove the lien mark the account with
acknowledgement.
(f) The petitioner's Bank Account is freezed due to transfer of amounts by
the buyers who allegedly got the amounts by transfer from the accounts of on-
line fraud transaction as per the allegations made by the respondents. The 12th
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respondent has specifically directed all the Banks which are linked to the
petitioner's phone No. +91 - 90423 14331 to freeze the accounts of the
petitioner, and due to this, the petitioner's all the other Bank Accounts are
freezed without any information or notice to the petitioner. The respondents-
authorities have no right to freeze the petitioner's accounts which is also part
and parcel of transaction and hence, the fifth respondent, by freezing the
petitioner's account, is illegal and against the principles of natural justice and
liable to be set aside in accordance with law. The petitioner had made written
representation to the fifth respondent-Bank requesting them to de-freeze the
account of petitioner, dated 27.08.2024.
3. The learned Central Government Standing Counsel appearing for the
respondents 2 and 4 contended as follows:
(a) The Indian Cyber Crime Coordinate Centre (I4C) is an organisation
under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and has been actively engaged in
addressing the rapidly increasing instances of cyber-crime across the country.
Indian Cybercrime Coordinate Centre (I4C) deals with cyber-crime in the country
in a coordinated and comprehensive manner to create an effective frame-work
and eco-system for the Law Enforcement Agencies of States/UTs for prevention,
detection, investigation and prosecution of Cybercrime in the country.
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(b) I4C has provided a centralised on-line plat-form, i.e. the National
Cyber Reporting Plat-form (NCRP) for reporting cyber-crime and on-line financial
fraud complaints. The complaint reported on this plat-form are automatically
assigned to the relevant States or Union Territories within the portal and I4C has
no control or intervention in it. The portal has two components:-
www.cybercrime.gov.in and the 1930 National toll-free help-line, through which
cyber-crime complaints can be reported without the need to visit a Police Station
by the victims of cyber-crimes. The 1930 help-line number, where calls are
managed by call centres, operated by LEAs of States/UTs. After preliminary
inquiry of the details submitted by victims, the LEAs of States/UTs, based on
these complaints, issue notice to the Bank Officials to mark lien or hold the
reported transaction as per the relevant and applicable provisions of BNSS, 2023.
Accordingly, the Bank Officials take action to lien or hold the reported amount.
(c) The on-line financial transactional frauds reported on the portal and
through the 1930 helpline, are linked to a module called Citizen Financial Cyber-
crime Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS), which is a module
developed by I4C, MHA to trace fraudulent money in the financial channel. If
fraud money is available in the financial channel, the fraud amount is put on a
lien, i.e. on hold to prevent it from exiting the financial channel through the well-
established coordination of LEAs and Bank/Financial Institutions.
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(d) The system further informs the complainant through SMS about the
lien. This enables the victim to know how much of the fraud money he has lost,
has been saved and he can approach the jurisdictional Police Station for co-
operating with the investigation of the case and approach the competent Court
for the return of the lien amount. This intervention of marking a lien is exercised
by the concerned Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) under Section 168 of the
BNSS, which empowers the Police to prevent the cognizable offences. Hence,
neither MHA nor I4C has any intervention or administrative control over the
marking of lien or freezing of bank account.
(e) The Police Officers exercising powers under Section 102 Cr.P.C. /
Section 106 of the BNSS for marking of lien and debit freezing of the account
reported on the NCRP have been instructed to exercise due care and caution
before issuing such orders.
(f) I4C is an attached office of the Ministry of Home Affairs and provides a
plat-form, namely the National Cyber-crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) for reporting
cyber-crimes and on-line financial complaints. I4C has no administrative control
or jurisdiction over the functioning of States/UT Law Enforcement Agencies
(LEAs) to act on the complaints. I4C co-ordinates with the stake-holders,
including Law Enforcement Agencies of States/UTs Law Enforcement Agencies of
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States/UTs, from time to time, on the issues relating to the functioning of the
Portal & extends techno-legal support to the LEAs in matters of cyber-crimes.
(g) In this case, to identify the fraudsters and to ascertain the role of the
petitioner, a thorough investigation has to be carried out by the concerned Law
Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to which the complaints have been assigned. In
this regard, the respondents-Banks have to inform this Court regarding the
notice/instruction of the concerned LEAs officials of the States/Union Territories
(UTs) received on the NCRP-CFCFRMS, compliance with which they had frozen
the Bank Account of the petitioner.
(h) As per the Article 246 of the Indian Constitution, public and Police are
State Subject as per the 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India and hence, all
the reported complaints are dealt by the respective State/Police Authorities,
based on the information provided by the complaint and I4C has no role to play
in the freezing of the Bank Account.
(i) In a similar case at the Kerala High Court, titled Dr.Sajeer Vs. RBI and
another, on 25.09.2023, the Court passed a judgment pertaining to the de-
freezing of the account with the following directions:
(a) The banks are instructed to freeze the accounts of the petitioners only
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to the extent specified by the Police authorities;
(b) The Police Authorities must inform the Banks, if the freeze needs to
continue within eight months.
(c) The Banks should comply with the instructions. If there is no
information from the Police, the petitioners can approach the Court again.
(j) On 18.12.2023, the Jharkhand High Court in W.P (PIL).6086 of 2023,
directed the I4C to prepare guidelines for digital banking transactions,
restoration of defrauded amounts and grievance redressal mechanisms. The I4C
has prepared a draft SOP, which is currently under consultation with stake-
holdes.
(k) The SOP aims to standardize the procedures for law enforcement
banks and financial intermediaries to prevent the mis-use of the system of lien
marking and account freezing to help the victims of Cyber-Enabled Financial
Crimes (CEFC) and restore the defrauded amount to the rightful owner while
ensuring accountability of all the participants for their action and in-action and
providing avenues for time bound grievance redressal for parties affected by the
action taken based on information provided by the system. That the Police
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officers exercising powers under Section 102 Cr.P.C./Section 106 of the BNSS for
marking of lien and debit freezing of the account reported on the NCRP have
been instructed to exercise due care and caution before issuing such orders.
(l) The Police officers exercising powers under Section 106 of BNSS for
marking of lien and debit freezing of the account reported on the NCRP have
been instructed to exercise due care and caution before issuing such notices.
(m) I4C and MHA has no role to play in the instant writ petition, and
hence, an opportunity to the concerned LEAs of States/UTs involved in this case
for marking lien or freezing bank account may be provided for apprising the
Court about the status of their investigation. Accordinglym, after obtaining the
information of the respondents-Banks in this case, it is requested to implead
these LEAs of the States/UTs for further report.
3. Contending as above, the learned Central Government Standing
Counsel appearing for the respondents 2 and 4 sought to implead the Law
Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) as a party to the present Writ Petition. In the
considered view of this Court, it is not necessary to implead LEAs as such.
4. Learned counsel for the fifth respondent submitted that they have
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received so many complaints from the Police from various States regarding the
dispute involved in this Writ Petition.
5. Further, according to the learned Central Government Standing
Counsel, the respondents 2 and 4 will come under the "State Subject" in the
Constitution of India.
6. This Court perused the materials available on record. This Court is not
inclined to give any direction to the respondents who are outside the Jurisdiction
of this Court.
7. Hence, the present Writ Petition is dismissed. However, the petitioner is
at liberty to work out his remedy in the manner known to law. The Miscellaneous
Petitions are closed.
20-06-2025
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To
1. The Principal Secretary To Government,
Department Of Home, Fort St. George, Chennai-600009.
2. Union of India, represented by its Principal
Secretary to Government of India,
Ministry of Home Affairs, Secretariat, New Delhi.
3. The Reserve Bank of India,
Rep. by its Chief General Manager, Secretary,
Secretaries Department, 16th Floor, Central Office
Building, Shahid Bhagat Marg, Mumbai-400001.
Maharashtra State.
4. Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and
Management System (CFCFRMS),
Rep. by Principal Secretary, Home Affairs,
Secretariat, New Delhi.
5. The Branch Manager, HDFC Bank Ltd., ITC
Centre, Anna Salai, 759, ITC Centre, Anna Salai,
Opp.TVS, Chennai-600 002.
6. The Director and Inspector General of Police,
Mylapore, Chennai-600 004.
7. The Station House Officer, Cyber Crime Police
Station, Assistant Commissioner of Police,
Hyderabad, Telangana State.
8. The Inspector of Police, Hanamkonda Police
Station, Warangal Commissionerate, Hanak Konda,
Telangana State.
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9. The Station House Officer, Siddipet I-Town Police
Station, Siddipet, Telangana State.
10. The Superintendent of Police, Cyber Security
Bureau, Hyderabad, Telangana State.
11. The Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime Police
Station, Cyderabad Commissionerate, Gachibowli,
Hyderabad, Telangana State.
12. The State House Officer, Cyber Economic and
Narcotic Crime Police Station, East Division,
Broadway Road, Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore-560 051.
Karnataka State.
13. Station House Officer, Cyber Crime Police
Station, Rajkot City, Gujarat State.
14. The Station House Officer, Cyber Crime Police
Station, Malappuram, Kerala State.
15. The Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime Police
Station, Outer District, New Delhi.
16. The Public Prosecutor, High Court, Madras.
17. The Government Advocate (Criminal Side), High Court, Madras.
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P.VELMURUGAN, J
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20.06.2025
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