Why Karnataka High Court directed bank to refund Rs 3.25 lakh to woman

Last year, Nujaiba Jaleel, a housewife, tried to send Rs 3.25 lakh to her father by RTGS. But she typed the last four digits of her father’s bank account incorrectly and has since been trying to recover the amount, which was erroneously transferred to a dormant account. The bank rejected her representations, stating that the account holder is untraceable.

Appearing for the bank, Advocate B S Jeevan Kumar informed the court that the amount could be restored to the petitioner’s account if the beneficiary account holder provided a no-objection to re-transferring the amount back to the sender’s account.

Advocate Muhammad Irshad M H, appearing for Jaleel, argued that the amount was wrongly transferred to the bank account of Standard Engineering Works on December 17, 2025. He contended that the beneficiary account was dormant and could be misused if the money was not re-transferred.

The court noted that the notice issued to Standard Engineering Works could not be served, and the postal department returned it with the remark “Left without instructions”. The court then directed the bank to re-transfer the amount to Jaleel’s account.

Before petitioning the high court, Jaleel had approached the ombudsman of the Reserve Bank of India to recover the mistakenly transferred money, but her request was turned down because regulatory frameworks explicitly require beneficiary consent for such reversals.

In her plea in the high court, Jaleel claimed that being deprived of her money violated Article 300A of the Constitution.