Bank accounts of areca-nut importer frozen over origin-paper doubts; High Court quashes freeze
Customs/DRI authorities provisionally attached four bank accounts of an importing firm over doubted Sri Lankan origin certificates for areca-nut consignments. The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore held the fresh attachment was without jurisdiction and directed the accounts be defrozen.
This page records what the cited court, tribunal and government records say happened. Findings belong to the court or authority that made them; this register adds none of its own. Names of private individuals are withheld unless a naming gate clears them.
How we verify →The attachment stands quashed and the accounts were ordered to be defrozen; no confiscation or penalty was imposed in this decision.
What happened
The High Court recorded that the petitioners import Sri Lankan-origin areca nuts and that the authorities doubted the origin papers for four late-2022 consignments, treating one certificate for a 30.11.2022 entry as fake.
The authorities' case, as recorded by the Court, was that the tariff relief claimed under the bilateral pact was suspect, so access to four deposit accounts was blocked, with earlier blocks dated 07.12.2023 and 03.06.2024 followed by a fresh six-month block dated 03.12.2024.
The Court held that a provisional bank-account attachment needs a pending adjudicatory proceeding begun by a demand notice, and recorded that no show-cause notice under Section 28, 28AAA or 28B had been issued, so inquiry alone could not sustain the freeze.
The Court allowed the writ, quashed the 03.12.2024 attachment communication, and directed the respondents to defreeze the petitioners' bank accounts immediately.
What the record says
“Respondents are directed to defreeze the bank accounts of the petitioners”
W.P. No. 874 of 2025, operative directions — read the full text
A peaceful economic act
The judgment concerns customs review of areca-nut origin certificates and claimed duty exemption; it records no allegation of violence, fraud on a person or prohibited goods.
What we could not confirm
Petitioners' home town is not stated in the excerpt, so no district is given; Madhya Pradesh nexus is via the Indore bench of the High Court. Whether any later show-cause notice was issued after the judgment could not be confirmed.