Police officer being probed in Karnataka Bitcoin scam withdraws HC plea to quash 2023 FIR over destruction of evidence

The advocate initially argued in the High Court this week that the SIT had filed two separate FIRs in 2023 and 2024 on the same set of facts of alleged destruction and tampering of evidence pertaining to electronic devices seized from international hacker, Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki, 30, by the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch in 2020.

The High Court, however, observed orally during a brief hearing on Tuesday that prima facie the hacker could not have operated without connivance of others. The High Court bench also observed that it was familiar with the hacker’s case and would allow even three FIRs in the matter.

The SIT also presented a file to the court on Tuesday to show that the two FIRs against the police officer were on different facts and not the same facts as claimed by the officer.

On Wednesday, Pujar’s advocate sought to withdraw the plea to quash the 2023 FIR by citing the High Court’s oral observations from Tuesday and sought liberty to pursue the matter again at a later date. The High Court allowed the advocate’s plea to withdraw the petition.

Background of the case

Hacker Srikrishna and his accountant Robin Khandelwal were initially arrested by the Bengaluru crime branch in November 2020 on charges of buying drugs online using Bitcoin.

The case involving the purchase of drugs on the darknet eventually led to the cracking of several cybercrimes in Karnataka – involving the then 26-year-old hacker Srikrishna Ramesh – including a Rs 11.5 crore heist from the state e-procurement portal in 2019.

The handling of the cases involving the hacker by the police under the BJP regime in Karnataka after the arrests in November 2020 resulted in allegations of corruption by the Congress when it was in opposition between 2020-2023.

There are allegations of police officials grabbing a large cache of Bitcoin that was found in the crypto wallets of Sriki after his arrest in November 2020.

The Congress government in Karnataka created the CID SIT on June 30, 2023 – shortly after it came to power in May 2023 in Karnataka – to probe the Bitcoin scam from the BJP tenure.

After the SIT was constituted, two new FIRs were filed in August 2023 and January 2024 with respect to the tampering of evidence and alleged illegal confinement of the hacker and his associate by the police in 2020-21.

Earlier this year the police arrested three former Bengaluru crime branch police officers – Prashanth Babu, Chandradhar S R and Lakshmikanthaiah in the illegal confinement case while Sridhar Pujar was granted anticipatory bail by the High Court on June 17 after raising questions to the SIT on why senior police officers supervising the cases in 2020 were not being probed.