27/02/2026
Freezing of Bank Accounts and the Mandate of Section 106 BNSS:
A Procedural and Constitutional ConcernIn recent years, the indiscriminate freezing of bank accounts by cyber police across the country has given rise to a serious procedural and constitutional concern. In numerous cases, innocent account holders have found their accounts frozen merely because a small amount of money has been credited to their accounts as part of a cyber fraud trail. Such persons are neither accused nor suspects, yet they are deprived of access to their own money for prolonged periods. The hardship is further exacerbated when the cybercrime complaint is registered in one State while the bank account and the account holder are situated in another, resulting in a jurisdictional impasse where local courts are often told that they lack the authority to intervene, leaving the affected citizen remediless despite clear statutory safeguards.The legal source of the power to freeze bank accounts during investigation is traceable to Section 102 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which now finds place in Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. The Supreme Court in State of Maharashtra v. Tapas D. Neogy, (1999) 7 SCC 685, conclusively held that a bank account constitutes “property” and may be seized by the police during investigation. At the same time, the Court made it clear that such power is not unbridled and must be exercised strictly in accordance with the procedural safeguards embedded in the statute, thereby recognising that seizure of bank accounts has serious implications and requires judicial supervision.One such safeguard, of fundamental importance, is the mandatory requirement under Section 102(3) CrPC, now Section 106(3) BNSS, which obligates the police officer effecting the seizure to forthwith report the same to the Magistrate having jurisdiction. This requirement is not a mere formality but a substantive condition designed to ensure immediate judicial oversight over coercive investigative action. The Madras High Court in T. Subbulakshmi v. Commissioner of Police, 2013 SCC OnLine Mad 1460, held that freezing of a bank account without informing the jurisdictional Magistrate is illegal and unsustainable. The Court quashed the freezing order solely on account of non-compliance with this statutory mandate, reaffirming that judicial scrutiny over seizures is compulsory and not dependent upon the discretion of the investigating agency.In my recent case, the Hon’ble High Court has been pleased to direct the bank authorities to defreeze the bank account of the petitioner with immediate effect. 
