Delhi High Court Today (July 1) directed RBL Bank to unfreeze HT Media’s Shine.com account after finding only two disputed transactions. A Rs 10 lakh lien is to be maintained to safeguard future complaints.
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NEW DELHI: In a major relief for HT Media, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered RBL Bank to immediately unfreeze the bank account of its job recruitment platform, Shine.com.
The decision came from Justice Vikas Mahajan, who heard a petition filed by HT Media challenging the freezing of its account. The company said the freeze happened because of fraud complaints filed in Gujarat by some individuals who were allegedly cheated by people impersonating Shine.com representatives.
The Court carefully reviewed the matter and found that there were only two transactions under suspicion. After examining the situation, the Court made it clear that instead of keeping the whole account blocked, the bank should keep a lien only on the disputed amount.
“It is deemed appropriate to de-freeze the petitioner’s account with further direction to the bank to make a lien on the amount of Rs 10 lakhs (approx). In case the bank receives any complaint in future, the bank shall communicate to the petitioner before taking any adverse actions,”
-the Court ordered.
HT Media told the Court that fraudsters have been pretending to be Shine.com employees, misleading people by promising fake jobs and taking money from them. These fake agents have reportedly been using the name of Shine.com to collect payments and vanish.
Complaints were being filed on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) and at various local cyber police stations.
Due to these complaints, RBL Bank had frozen the Shine.com account multiple times, HT Media claimed. However, the company highlighted that most of the suspicious credit amounts were very small, ranging from Rs 0 to Rs 20,000, and that there was no major financial fraud traceable directly to their operations.
The company also explained to the Court that instead of just putting a lien on the amounts in question, the bank had been completely freezing the entire account, which caused serious trouble.
Because of the repeated freezing, many cheques issued by the company were returned, and this badly affected the business operations. Most importantly, the company was unable to pay the salaries of its employees, leading to a financial and reputational burden.
Advocate Umag Tyagi appeared on behalf of HT Media in the Court
Advocate Survi Agarwal represented RBL Bank.
CASE TITLE:
HT Media Ltd v Union of India & Ors.
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