Twenty-one requisitions worth Rs 1.16 crore will not stand in the way of a woman defrauded through a fake WhatsApp loan offer: the Kerala High Court has allowed her to operate, and then close, her frozen bank account.
Ernakulam: Axis Bank has been told by the Kerala High Court to let a cyber fraud victim run her frozen bank account, and to close it if she asks, without regard to the 21 requisitions for Rs 1,16,32,892 placed against it. On the materials before it, the Court held, the disputed transactions came from a fraud practised on her and she was not responsible for them [Radhika Menon v. Branch Manager, Axis Bank and Others].
The writ petition, WP(C) No. 3948 of 2026, was disposed of by Justice M A Abdul Hakhim on October 15, 2026; the judgment was signed and uploaded on October 23. Advocate Azeem Salih argued for the petitioner and Advocate Premchand M for the bank, and Senior Government Pleader Jasmine V H was also present.
The Court’s finding and the direction
Justice Abdul Hakhim held that the materials before him showed that the petitioner had been defrauded and was not answerable for the transactions routed through her account:
As per the materials available before this Court, it is clear that the disputed transactions are the result of the fraud committed on the Petitioner by the said Zenith Finance and the Petitioner is not responsible for the said transactions. In such case, the Petitioner can be permitted to operate the account, ignoring the 21 requisitions for Rs.1,16,32,892/-
The petition was accordingly disposed of with a direction to the bank to allow her to operate the account while ignoring the 21 requisitions. Her counsel said she does not wish to keep the account running and would rather close it. The Court directed that if she makes that request, the bank shall act on it, again leaving the 21 requisitions for Rs 1,16,32,892 out of account.
Her account of the fraud
The petitioner is a 62-year-old widow from Thrissur district. The frozen account is a current account in the name of her LPG distributorship at the Kodungallur branch of Axis Bank, and she came to the High Court asking for it to be unfrozen. By an order of April 10, 2026, Station House Officers of police stations in Odisha, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Kerala were added as respondents.
Her case is that an establishment calling itself Zenith Finance offered her a loan over WhatsApp, took her account details and Aadhaar card, and then passed the disputed transactions through her account. She placed the WhatsApp exchanges with Zenith Finance before the Court. Zenith Finance is not a party, and what is said against it is the petitioner’s account, accepted by the Court only for the limited purpose of this writ petition.
What the bank placed on record
Through a statement and an additional statement, the bank showed a lien of Rs 1,16,32,892 resting on 21 requisitions. The disputed transactions, it said, took place across three days, January 8 to January 11, 2026, and no other requisitions were pending on the account. Its counsel confirmed that the petitioner had quickly told the bank about the misuse of her account and had named Zenith Finance.
The bank added that it had received court orders to pay amounts into the account of a victim of the fraud, but could not comply because the petitioner’s account was in negative balance.
What the ruling covers, and what it leaves alone
The decision shows that a person whose account was used by fraudsters, and who reported the fraud to the bank promptly, can approach the High Court under Article 226 and ask it to look past a lien built from requisitions in several States. The Court rested its finding on the WhatsApp communications, the prompt report to the bank and the bank’s own statement that every requisition related to a three-day window. That is a finding on the materials in this petition. It does not decide the fraud case, which remains for the investigating agencies.
Case Title: Radhika Menon v. Branch Manager, Axis Bank, Kodungallur Branch and Others [WP(C) No. 3948 of 2026]
Bench: Justice M A Abdul Hakhim, Kerala High Court
Date of Judgment: October 15, 2026 (signed October 23, 2026)
Appearances: Advocate Azeem Salih for the petitioner; Advocate Premchand M for the bank; Senior Government Pleader Jasmine V H.