IS BITCOIN ILLEGAL OR LEGAL? TAKE A CLEAR STAND - SC

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant asked the Central government to make a clear stand on bitcoin. "Is it illegal or not? You have to make your stand clear."

The Top Court was hearing a petition filed by Ajay Bhardwaj (one of the accused in the GainBitcoin scam) seeking quashing of the case registered against him. He along with mastermind and brother Amit Bhardwaj allegedly ran a multi-level marketing scheme pledging massive returns to investors. The scam size was initially ₹2,000 crores which were revised to ₹20,000 crores after a rise in bitcoin value.

ASG Aishwarya Bhati informed the Court that the case involves 87,000 bitcoins. And after issuing multiple, the accused person did not cooperate.

Advocate Shoeb Alam, appearing for the complainant, informed the court 

that his money was taken away and therefore filed an FIR in 2018. The accused person was arrested but soon after his bail, he tried to attack the complainant and the same was on CCTV cameras.

The Court directed the accused to cooperate with the probe. The bench further granted interim protection from arrest.