MP HC Unfreezes Account Frozen Over Cyber Complaint, Keeps Disputed ₹5,500 In FD Pending Magistrate’s Order Within 3 Months

The petitioner sought a writ directing the respondents to defreeze his bank account, maintained with respondent No. 2.

The Court recorded that the disputed amount was Rs. 5,500 and considered the petition in light of its earlier decisions in Malcolm Murayis & Ors. v. State Bank of India & Others and Archana v. State of Madhya Pradesh & Others.

The Court applied the principles in Malcolm Murayis, under which a disputed amount may be placed in a fixed deposit and released if the competent Judicial Magistrate does not pass an order within three months.

It also applied Archana, which relied on the Ministry of Home Affairs SOP dated 10 April 2026 and emphasized proportionality in account freezes: ordinarily, restraint should be limited to the suspected amount, and a full-account freeze requires justification.

The police must proceed in accordance with the relevant provisions of the BNSS or other applicable law.

The Court held that the principles in Malcolm Murayis and Archana applied mutatis mutandis to the petitioner’s case.

Given the identified disputed amount of Rs. 5,500, it directed that this sum be secured in a fixed deposit rather than continuing to restrain the petitioner’s entire account. This preserved the disputed funds while allowing the petitioner to operate the account, consistently with the proportionality approach in Archana.

The disputed Rs. 5,500 must remain in a fixed deposit and may be liquidated only after an order by the competent Judicial Magistrate within three months; failing such an order, the petitioner may withdraw that amount after informing the police agency. The bank may take appropriate lawful action if it receives a complaint concerning another transaction.