RUTVIJ BHAGAT SINGH WAKHARE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present writ petition has been instituted by the petitioner under Article 32 of the Constitution of India seeking, principally, quashing of multiple First Information Reports ['FIRs' for short] registered in different States of the country. In the alternative, the petitioner seeks clubbing and consolidation of the subject FIRs, along with a direction to conduct one composite investigation by a single investigating agency, to avoid multiplicity of proceedings; conflicting investigations and possibly judicial opinions. For ready reference, the reliefs sought in the writ petition are extracted hereunder:

(2.) The subject FIRs have been registered in the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Odisha under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Information Technology Act, 20003. At this juncture, it would be apposite to set out the details of the FIRs which form the subject matter of the present proceedings: <IMG>JUDGEMENT_73_LAWS(SC)7_2026_1.jpg</IMG>

(3.) The allegations, as emerging from these FIRs, pertain to incidents of cyber fraud, wherein the complainants were contacted by unknown persons posing as police officials and were falsely informed that several money laundering activities had been carried out in their names. On this pretext, the complainants were induced to transfer large sums of money to various bank accounts for verification and investigation. It is alleged that a part of the money, so transferred, was credited to Account No.50200085120507 maintained in the name of 'M/s Al Zeba Marinen Overseas', a proprietary concern of the petitioner. Though the petitioner is not named as an accused in the subject FIRs, the aforesaid bank account belonging to his proprietary concern finds a mention therein.