This is now one of the most common calls a chamber gets, and almost nobody who makes it has done anything wrong. A shopkeeper sells a phone. A trader receives a payment. Somebody sells a second-hand bike on OLX. Three weeks later the account is frozen and the bank says only that there is a police request.
Why it happens to people who are not accused
When a cyber-fraud victim reports a transfer, the money is traced from account to account. Fraud proceeds are moved quickly through layers of accounts — often accounts of ordinary people who received a genuine payment from someone in that chain. The investigating agency asks the bank to mark a lien on the account at the end of the trail, and banks comply immediately.
The lien is usually placed on the whole account even when the disputed sum is a fraction of the balance. That is the part people find hardest to accept: ₹18,000 of traced money can freeze ₹4 lakh of your own.
What not to do
- Do not keep calling the bank. The bank did not freeze your account and cannot unfreeze it. It acted on a request and will not act against one.
- Do not open a new account and quietly move on. If the lien is followed by a notice and you have gone silent, your position gets worse.
- Do not pay anyone who offers to get it released for a fee. There is no informal route, and the people offering one are running the next fraud.
The order in which to move
Almost everything depends on identifying which police station asked for the lien. Until you know that, nothing can be done — and the bank will tell you, in writing, if you ask in writing.
- Get the freeze confirmed in writing from your branch, with the reference to the requesting agency and the amount involved.
- Assemble proof that the credit was a genuine transaction: invoice, delivery, chat, the counterparty's number, GST records if a business.
- Approach the investigating officer with that proof and a written application. Many liens are lifted at this stage, because the officer is not trying to freeze your money — they are trying to trace the victim's.
- If the officer does not act, move an application before the jurisdictional magistrate for release of the account, and if necessary a writ petition before the Rajasthan High Court where the freeze has continued without justification.
What actually gets these released
Documents, and the speed of getting to the right officer. An application that arrives with a bank statement, an invoice and a clear paper trail of one transaction is a different document from a letter asserting innocence. The first is something an officer can act on; the second is something they file.
One more practical point that comes up constantly in Jodhpur: the requesting police station is very often in another state — Rajasthan sees a large number of liens requested from cyber cells elsewhere in the country. That does not stop the application, but it changes how it has to be pursued, and it is the reason so many people give up.
What this stands on
Every statement above rests on one of the provisions below. Section numbers are the 2023 codes — the BNS, BNSS and BSA replaced the IPC, CrPC and Evidence Act from 1 July 2024.
- BNSS s.106
- Power of the police to seize property suspected to be the proceeds of an offence
- BNSS s.497
- Custody and disposal of property pending trial — the route to release
- BNSS s.503
- Police report of seizure to the Magistrate
- Constitution, Art. 226
- Writ jurisdiction where a freeze continues without review
- IT Act s.66C, s.66D
- Identity theft and cheating by personation using a computer resource
- National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal
- cybercrime.gov.in and the 1930 helpline
Awaiting verification by Rajender Prajapat before publication. This is general information about the law, not advice on your matter.