Delhi court slams CBI, directs defreezing of bank accounts

Observing that the freezing of bank accounts of without a direct link to a crime is “draconian”, a Delhi court has directed the CBI to defreeze three accounts of an individual whose son-in-law is an accused in a Rs 3-crore bribery case.

Slamming the agency for its “completely arbitrary” action of freezing the accounts, the court said the probe of the alleged offences “cannot be made a tool for harassing ordinary citizenry only because their relatives are suspected of having committed certain offences”.

Special Judge Sushant Changotra was hearing the plea of one Gulshan Kumar, moved by his advocate Prateek Som, challenging the freezing of his three bank accounts as illegal.

In an order passed on Tuesday, the court said, “In the application at hand, the applicant (Gulshan) is the father-in-law of one of the accused.”

It said, according to the CBI, the applicant was not involved in the entire sequence of events relating to the demand, acceptance or transportation of the bribe amount. The court also said the investigating officer (IO) had not recorded any reasons for freezing the bank accounts.

While the CBI alleged that the applicant aided his absconding son-in-law’s concealment, the court observed a discrepancy that the accused was arrested on June 16, yet Gulshan’s accounts were not frozen until two days later.

Judge Changotra said, “The investigating agency can proceed to freeze bank accounts of individuals, but it has to be done with the object of safeguarding and preventing the loss of proceeds of crime.”

He said that in the present case, there was apparently no connection between the proceeds of crime and the bank accounts of the applicant, and there was not “a whisper of allegation” that the accused Prabhat Kumar (Kapoor) had transferred any amount to his father-in-law’s account after an alleged conspiracy meeting on May 14.

On June 2, while rejecting the CBI’s plea seeking further custodial interrogation of Haryana cadre IPS officer Deepak Gahlawat, arrested in the alleged bribery case linked to the agency’s probe into a fake drug manufacturing racket, the court had also noted that there were no financial transactions in Gahlawat’s bank account after a conspiratorial meeting with other co-accused persons on May 14.

In its order, the court highlighted that before freezing the bank accounts of an individual, the IO must have a reasonable basis to assume that the bank account was used directly or indirectly in receiving or layering the proceeds of crime.

But in this case, the court said that the CBI did not even have the statements of accounts before taking the “arbitrary decision” to freeze them.

“The arbitrary exercise of the above-mentioned discretion in freezing the bank accounts of individuals who do not have any direct or remote connection with the commission of offences is completely draconian in nature, and the investigating agency cannot proceed to arbitrarily attach/freeze/seize the bank accounts or other valuable assets of individuals on their whims,” the court said.

Deprecating the action, it said that an investigating agency is bound to act within the four corners of the law and the probe of the alleged offences “cannot be made a tool for harassing ordinary citizenry only because their relatives are suspected of having committed certain offences”.

“It is extremely important that such draconian and arbitrary practices are shunned to protect the valuable rights of law-abiding citizens,” the court said.

It said that prima facie the freezing of Gulshan’s bank accounts was “completely arbitrary and devoid of any plausible explanation”.

The court then directed the defreezing of the three bank accounts.