Jurisdiction in UPI fraud cases: where to file

By Advocate Panchanand Shaw, Bar Council of West Bengal · Published 4 Nov 2026 · Court process

You do not have to travel to the fraudster's city to file a UPI fraud complaint. Information about a cognizable offence may be given to any police station, and a Zero FIR is recorded there and transferred to the station that holds territorial jurisdiction. Your own district is enough to start, and often enough to finish.

Where you file is decided by two different sets of rules, and only one of them is about geography. For the criminal case, section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 permits information about a cognizable offence to be given to an officer in charge of a police station orally or by electronic communication, irrespective of the area where the offence was committed. For your money, geography does not matter much at all: the bank complaint and the portal report go to the bank and to the cyber fraud system, not to a court.

In practice, then, the answer to where you file a UPI fraud complaint is: at the nearest police station, or online through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, plus a written complaint to your own bank. A station that says the fraud happened somewhere else is not entitled to turn you away on that ground; it records a Zero FIR and transfers the file. What follows is how the rules actually work, and which forum to use for which part of the problem.

What the statute says about the police station

Section 173 of the BNSS 2023 is the provision under which a first information report is recorded. Two features of it matter here. First, information may be given irrespective of the area where the offence was committed, so the police station near your home is a permitted destination even though the money was transferred out of a server elsewhere and received by an account in a third place. Second, information may be given by electronic communication, and where it is, it is taken on record once the informant signs it within three days. A free copy of the recorded information must be given to the informant or the victim forthwith.

Registration is not discretionary where the information discloses a cognizable offence, and this is where most jurisdictional arguments are actually invented by the counter. A station cannot convert a question of territorial jurisdiction into a reason not to record the crime. If an officer refuses, the remedy is set out in the same section: send the substance of the information in writing to the Superintendent of Police, who may investigate the case himself or direct a subordinate to do so, and if that also fails, apply to the Magistrate under section 175(3) of the BNSS 2023 for a direction that the case be registered and investigated.

The Zero FIR: how a file travels

You file the information at the station nearest to you, stating the offence, the amount, the transaction reference and the manner of the fraud.
The station records a Zero FIR, meaning it is entered without a regular serial number because the station may not have territorial jurisdiction over the place of the offence.
The Zero FIR is transferred to the police station or cyber crime unit that holds jurisdiction, which registers a numbered FIR and investigates.
The investigation is conducted by an officer empowered to investigate the offences, and the electronic evidence is collected with the certification the law requires.
If the receiving station insists on transferring the file before recording anything, ask for the request to be recorded in writing, and quote section 173.
Keep the Zero FIR number. It is the reference that lets you follow the file after it moves to another station.

At the counter, ask for three things and note them in your own diary: the number of the information recorded, a free copy of it, and, where the information is being given by electronic communication, a note of the fact that it must be signed by you within three days for it to be taken on record. If the officer says this is the wrong station, ask him to record the information and mark it for transfer, rather than to advise you to go elsewhere. A written request, handed over and receipted, is difficult to refuse on record.

Where is a UPI fraud actually committed?

A UPI fraud happens in several places at once, and the law does not insist that all of them fall inside one district. The deception may be practised over a call that originates anywhere; the money leaves your account where you are sitting; the beneficiary account, the payment system infrastructure and the records sit with banks and with an intermediary whose systems may be in another state. On facts like these, the ordinary rule that a court has jurisdiction over the place where the offence was committed leads to more than one permissible place, and provisions that deal with an offence committed partly in one area and partly in another, or with an offence whose consequences arise elsewhere, allow a court at any of those places to take cognizance.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly, because it is what a victim actually wants to know: the place where the money was debited from the victim's account is generally regarded as a place where the consequence of the offence occurred, and the victim's own district can therefore be the place of trial as well as the place of the complaint. Nothing in the statute forces a complainant from West Bengal to pursue a fraudster in another state, and no complainant should agree to do so out of a misapprehension about jurisdiction. Where the money has been routed through several states, the investigation will be coordinated among police units, but the case still has a home near you.

Which forum for which problem

What you need	Where to go	Why that forum
Funds stopped or recalled quickly	Your bank, the 1930 helpline and the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal	These routes alert banks along the transfer chain so that a lien can be placed on traced funds
A registered criminal case and an investigation	Any police station, or the cyber crime police station in your district	Information may be given irrespective of where the offence was committed, and a Zero FIR is transferred to the competent station
The bank's refusal to reverse, reviewed	Bank nodal officer, then the RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme	The liability directions govern the bank's conduct and the scheme provides a free escalation route
Compensation from a service provider for a deficient service	A consumer commission under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019	The Act covers deficiency in service, and the 2021 rules on e-commerce add duties for online sellers and platforms
Recovery of money from an identified person	A civil suit in the court where the defendant resides or the cause of action arose	A criminal case punishes; it does not by itself return your money. The civil route is what attaches property or debts
Bail, quashing or revision in West Bengal	The City Sessions Court or the Calcutta High Court, as the stage requires	Kolkata cases registered with the city police are tried before the Bankshall Court, with sessions and High Court remedies above it

How this works in Kolkata and West Bengal

Two practical points are worth knowing if you are in this state. First, the cyber crime police station and the district cyber cells are the natural destination for a complaint, but the nearest ordinary police station remains a lawful destination as well, and it is the station that must record the information and transfer it if it lacks jurisdiction. Second, where a case arising from a Kolkata Police file reaches trial, the court before which it is ordinarily tried is the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's court at Bankshall, with sessions trials at the City Sessions Court and remedies such as bail and quashing before the Calcutta High Court. None of that changes the place where you lodge the complaint, and none of it requires the victim to be physically present in the fraudster's city at any stage. More on how these cases are handled locally is set out under the West Bengal cyber crime practice page.

The dispute that is really two disputes

Most confusion about jurisdiction comes from running two remedies together. Your complaint against the bank is not a criminal case and does not follow criminal jurisdiction at all; it is a customer grievance governed by the RBI's directions on unauthorised electronic transactions, escalated to the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme if the bank is silent or unsatisfactory. Your complaint against the fraudster and the accounts that received the money is a criminal case, governed by the provisions on where information may be given and where the trial may be held, and it is what allows the police to seek records and freeze funds. A third, quieter dispute is often the fastest one: if the money sits in the account of somebody you can identify - a person who promised you a job, a seller who never delivered, a relative of an acquaintance - a civil claim for recovery is available independently of the criminal case, and it can be pursued where that person actually lives or works. The choice between these three routes is a question of what you want first - recovery, investigation, or accountability - and a complaint that asks the police for a refund and the bank for a conviction will get neither.

Common mistakes about where to file

Accepting an oral refusal at the counter instead of asking for a Zero FIR, and then losing days while the money leaves the first account.
Assuming the complaint must be filed in the district or state where the money was received, and travelling there at personal cost.
Filing only on the portal. A portal complaint generates references and can lead to a registered case, but it does not by itself give you a police file you can follow in court.
Filing only a bank complaint. The bank can reverse a loss; it cannot investigate a crime or trace a chain of accounts.
Filing a civil suit for recovery without also pursuing the criminal complaint, which means losing the powers of search, production and lien that only the police can exercise.
Ignoring the intermediary's own grievance route. Payment apps and banks have complaint processes that are quicker than the courts for a reversal and a refund, even if they are useless for punishing an offender.

When to involve a lawyer

Filing in the right place needs no lawyer, and the steps above are designed to be used without one. Legal help earns its place when the forum is being used as an excuse: when a station refuses to record a Zero FIR despite section 173, when the file has moved somewhere you cannot follow and nobody answers for it, when the bank and the platform each say the other is responsible, or when a person you identify is being investigated and the criminal case has started to run alongside a financial dispute that has its own forum. In those situations the work is to pick one primary remedy, put the papers before the correct authority, and use the escalation routes in the right order. A cyber crime lawyer in Kolkata can take that over; the contact page explains what to send.

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Frequently asked questions

Which police station should I file a UPI fraud complaint at?

You can file at the police station nearest to you, or with the cyber crime police station for your district. Section 173 of the BNSS 2023 allows information about a cognizable offence to be given to an officer in charge of a police station irrespective of the area where the offence was committed, so distance from the fraudster is not a reason for refusal.

Can a police station refuse my complaint because the fraud happened in another state?

No. The place of the offence does not decide whether information can be recorded, and a station that believes it lacks jurisdiction should record a Zero FIR and transfer it to the competent station. If the officer still refuses, submit a written complaint to the Superintendent of Police, and if that fails apply to the Magistrate under BNSS section 175(3).

What is a Zero FIR in a UPI fraud case?

A Zero FIR is a first information report recorded at a police station that may not have territorial jurisdiction over the offence, entered without a regular serial number and then transferred to the station that does. It exists so that a victim is not sent from station to station while the money moves, and it is the practical form taken by the rule in BNSS section 173.

Will my case be tried in my own city or where the fraudster is?

It can be tried where the consequence of the offence was felt, which for a UPI fraud generally includes the place where the money was debited from the victim's account. Where a deception is practised in one place and the money delivered in another, more than one court can have jurisdiction. The investigation may span several states even so.

Does the bank complaint need to be filed in a particular place?

No. A complaint about an unauthorised electronic transaction goes to your own bank, ordinarily through the app, the helpline or the branch where the account is maintained, and it is governed by the RBI directions on customer liability rather than by territorial jurisdiction. If the bank does not resolve it, the escalation is to the RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme.

Where do I file a recovery suit against a person who took my money through UPI?

A civil suit for recovery of money is ordinarily filed where the defendant resides or works, or where the cause of action arose, and that is decided by the ordinary civil rules rather than the criminal ones. A civil remedy runs alongside the criminal case and is often what actually returns the money, which is why both are pursued together.

Can I file the UPI fraud complaint online instead of going to a police station?

Yes, complaints can be made on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, and financial fraud can be reported on the 1930 helpline. Under BNSS section 173, information may also be given by electronic communication and is taken on record once signed by the informant within three days. A portal complaint is not the same as an FIR, so follow up for a registered case.

Which court in Kolkata hears a cyber crime case registered by the city police?

Where the offence is triable by a Magistrate, a case registered with the Kolkata Police ordinarily comes before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's court at Bankshall. Offences triable by a Court of Session go to the City Sessions Court, and bail, quashing and revision matters go to the Calcutta High Court. The place of filing the complaint, however, remains the police station or the portal.

Information for general guidance only and not legal advice. Provisions cited follow the Information Technology Act 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023.

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