Police failure to forthwith report a bank-account seizure to the Magistrate vitiates the freeze.

The petitioner, A8 in Crime No. 83 of 2024, challenged the Judicial Magistrate’s order refusing to defreeze her Tamil Nadu Grama Bank account, while directing defreezing of her separate Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank account.

She argued that the police had frozen the accounts without notice and had not reported the seizure to the jurisdictional Magistrate.

The State’s Additional Public Prosecutor conceded that the failure to report the seizure forthwith was fatal.

1. Whether the petitioner was entitled to have the Magistrate’s refusal to defreeze her Tamil Nadu Grama Bank account reversed.

2. Whether the police’s failure to report the seizure of the bank account forthwith to the jurisdictional Magistrate vitiated the freezing of that account.

Section 106(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), corresponding to Section 102(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), requires a police officer exercising the power to seize property to report the seizure forthwith to the jurisdictional Magistrate.

Relying on State of Maharashtra v. Tapas D. Neogy, the Court treated a bank account as “property” capable of seizure or restraint where it has a direct link to the offence under investigation.

Applying Praveen Kumar v. State, and the authorities cited there—Padmini v. Inspector of Police and Uma Maheswari v. State—the Court held that non-compliance with the reporting requirement vitiates the freezing of a bank account.

The petitioner’s bank account had been frozen, but the police had not reported the seizure to the jurisdictional Magistrate; the trial court had also recorded that omission, and the prosecution conceded its significance.

Since a bank account falls within the property-seizure provision and the required forthwith report was not made, the freezing was vitiated under the authorities relied upon by the Court.

The Magistrate’s refusal to defreeze the Tamil Nadu Grama Bank account therefore could not stand.

It allowed Crl. M.P. No. 466 of 2025 in toto.