Overview
- The Supreme Court, in a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, dismissed a writ petition and refused bail to an accused in multiple cyber‑fraud FIRs on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, and told him to seek relief from the relevant High Courts.
- During the hearing the CJI described cyber criminals as “parasites” and said society’s interest is served by keeping such offenders behind bars, stressing that these scams commonly target victims across state lines.
- The petitioner, Manoj Kumar Singh, had asked the court to club FIRs from Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka that prosecutors say stem from transactions routed through an ICICI Bank account in the name of M/s Ananya Engineering and Trading Ltd.
- The judgment sits alongside ongoing suo motu Supreme Court work on ‘digital arrest’ scams that led several states to refer major cases to the CBI to enable cross‑state and international probes.
- The ruling increases pressure on banks, telecom providers and law‑enforcement agencies to improve coordination, tracing of mule accounts and public warnings, and it may lead to more centralized investigations to help victims recover funds.