BENGALURU: A Special Investigation Team (SIT) under Criminal Investigation Department has been constituted by the Congress ruled State Government to restart investigation into the multi crore Bitcoin scandal and the SIT team will be led by ADGP Manish Kharbikar.
The Bitcoin scandal was exposed during the previous State Government led by Bharatiya Janata Party in 2021.
“We had assured to restart investigation into the Bitcoin scandal and orders have been issued constituting SIT to restart probe into the scandal,” said Minister for Home Dr G. Parameshwar on Monday and stated that the earlier investigation into the scandal had not gone into detail to dig up facts. The Home Minister accused the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled State Government had “buried” the scandal.
Parameshwar said directions have been given to the SIT and SIT is free to seek any information from departments as part of its investigation into the scandal and if needed, necessary orders will be issued by the State Government under the law over the SIT investigation into the scandal to bring out the truth.
He stated that “To investigate the Bitcoin scandal it needs technical information and SIT can have access to information from Central agencies as well. The State police take inputs from Central agencies such as National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) among others.”
However, the Home Minister said since the scandal is a technical one and has international ramifications, no time frame has been set for the SIT to come out with the truth on the Bitcoin scandal but told to dig out the truth as early as possible.
Responding to the SIT investigation on the Bitcoin scandal, former BJP minister and incumbent MLA R. Ashok said that his party is not bothered by the constitution of SIT to probe the Bitcoin scandal and stated “Let them constitute.”
