You attempt to transfer money online but you end up sending it to the wrong account which is also dormant. What happens then? How do you get your money back?That’s the case of a woman who intended to transfer money to her father but inadvertently sent it to another account. The Rs 3.25 lakh bank transfer that went into the wrong account ended up as a case before the Karnataka High Court, which now has the bank to send the money back to the person who made the transfer.The court passed the order after hearing a petition filed by the woman who said she had intended to transfer the money to her father but inadvertently sent it to another account. The account belonged to M/s Standard Engineering Works and, according to the petitioner’s case, was dormant.Justice C.M. Poonacha, who heard the matter, directed the bank to re-transfer the Rs 3.25 lakh to the petitioner’s account. The bank has been given a maximum of three days from the date it receives a copy of the order to complete the transfer.
What the case is about
The problem began with an online transfer.The woman intended to send Rs 3.25 lakh to her father’s account. But while making the transfer, the money was inadvertently sent to another account. The problem happened because the account numbers were similar, except for the last four digits, in which the numbers were the same, but the sequencing was different. The intended account ended in 1619 and the unintended beneficiary account ended in 1916.That account belonged to M/s Standard Engineering Works, whose proprietor was made the proposed fourth respondent in the case. The amount was credited to that account on December 17, 2025.Jaleel approached the High Court after the money was not returned. Her petition sought, among other things, a direction to the GST Department to release or lift the lien or attachment over the Rs 3.25 lakh lying in the unintended beneficiary account. She also sought a direction to the bank to reverse the transaction and put the money back into her own account.There was another complication. The account into which the money had gone was said to be dormant. The petitioner also told the court that the bank had informed her that the account was potentially suspicious.The petitioner said she had taken credit facilities for the Rs 3.25 lakh and that she had been unable to transfer the money to her father for the purpose for which the credit had been obtained. She said this had caused her considerable hardship.She also said that she had provided the relevant material to establish that the transfer had been made erroneously.The proposed fourth respondent could not be served. The court recorded that an attempt had been made to serve him, but the postal cover was returned with the endorsement “left without instructions”.
Why court ruled in the woman’s favour
The key development in the hearing was the bank’s position.The bank’s counsel told the court that if an appropriate order was passed directing the re-transfer of the money, the bank would comply. The bank also confirmed that the account to which the money had been transferred was a dormant account.The court was therefore faced with a straightforward problem: Rs 3.25 lakh had been transferred by the petitioner to the wrong account, the account was dormant, the intended recipient had not received the money, and the person connected with the unintended beneficiary account could not be served.With that position on record, the court directed Federal Bank to re-transfer the Rs 3.25 lakh.The direction was not left open-ended. The court said the transfer should be made “forthwith, in any event, not later than three days from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.”The court consequently partly allowed the writ petition in those terms. The pending interlocutory applications, if any, were also disposed of.The order was passed by Justice C.M. Poonacha on September 9, 2026, in Writ Petition No. 6683 of 2026 (GM-RES). The petition had been filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution.
