Kerala HC Shields Innocent Crypto Traders From Account Freezes

[Bureau]

What happened?

The Kerala High Court issued a ruling that will safeguard individual bank account holders whose accounts got frozen due to the cybercrime investigations by the police. The high court directed the banks not to freeze the account but only to withhold the disputed amount received through UPI until the investigation is completed.

My Question

The question that came to mind after reading the article is what happens with the money that is received through the IMPS or NEFT payment system. Understandable most P2P vendors provide UPI transfers. Some of them do not and have a good reputation in the P2P marketplace. Does this ruling cover those Bank account holders who receive the money without using UPI?  I did not find anything about it in the article.

What are your thoughts?

The ruling would give a boost to those individuals who still have their accounts frozen. They can now take a sigh of relief knowing that their account has a chance to get unfrozen in some time after this positive ruling.

[1714605328]

1714605328

[1714605328]

1714605328

[1714605328]

1714605328

[TheUltraElite]

IMPS and NEFT are not included here, this is only for those who used UPI and got crypto transactions done through UPI only.

The news article is a welcome treat for many users in my opinion who got bank accounts frozen due to bullshit reasons. We are moving towards a more crypto-streamlined economic system in this country which is in need considering the rise of crypto in the dark.

Possibly in future the other methods of transacting will also get included, fingers crossed.

[pakhitheboss]

If contested with proper evidence and reasoning we can get positive outcome. It is what I felt after reading the article as the judge did what many P2P users needed whose account got blocked. To an extent I feel this was expected with the amount of Bank accounts getting reported and getting frozen. As someone  has to come up and take such shit measures by the police to the court. Many more of such issues would come to end except the 30 percent tax slab.

[avikz]

It's a great and welcoming change in the ecosystem. A lot of people in the past have got their account frozen due to cyber fraud. We have seen couple of such incidents in this forum too. It makes sense to withhold only the amount received through UPI payment and let the user use the banking services.

Great to see such decisions are coming in favor of crypto users. Especially when there is no legal framework available in the country.

[elevates]

It is a positive news for everyone who is part of the Indian crypto community. A lot of cryptocurrency users who were using Binance fro P2P have suffered as their bank accounts got frozen. I had read one such incident when a user used the bank account where funds were kept for his sister marriage and unfortunately it got frozen when he did a transaction using Binance P2P. It is one of the news from the thousands of news that came to notice when cyber police was placing freeze request to the banks. Thankfully after the Kerala highcourt directives such freeze would stop.

[cafter]

This is good news for people with frozen accounts, and it means that the legal system is trying to protect their rights in these situations.

[LucyFurr]

As far as I know, cybercells doesn't make a clear investigation and traces the accused person involved in it but they blatantly order the banks to freeze bank accounts which is totally unfair and this ruling from the High Court will also pave the way for the pending cases in other states since this decision can be highlighted to unfreeze their hold funds and only withhold the disputed funds.

Is this decision likely to remain the same if this is appealed to the Supreme court?

[pakhitheboss]

Is this decision likely to remain the same if this is appealed to the Supreme court?

Only the government agencies can appeal this decision in the Supreme Court. I do not think the crypto community will appeal against this judgment. Anyway, if there is an appeal I personally do not think the Supreme Court will overrule the judgment as there is nothing wrong with it. The judgment benefits those who are suffering from the frozen account issue and does not interfere with the investigation as it allows the investigating agency to hold only the funds in question. The banks have the ability to place a hold on the amount, which is why I do not think there would be an appeal.