New Delhi, Jan 9 The Delhi High Court has agreed to examine a plea seeking enhanced regulations for cryptocurrency or virtual digital assets (VDA).
The plea highlighted the plight of BitBNS users, who have been unable to withdraw their funds from their wallets since February 2022 due to a “cyberattack”.
Issuing notice, a bench of Justice Sachin Datta sought the response of several authorities, including the SEBI, the RBI, the Union Finance and Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Ministries in the matter.
The petition said that numerous users have faced months-long delays in accessing their legitimate funds on BitBNS, a major cryptocurrency exchange in India, causing significant financial distress and hardship for many families.
Additionally, discrepancies in portfolio values and wallet balances that did not align with market trends have caused further financial losses and emotional distress, it added.
The petition, filed through advocate Dinesh Jotwani, said that BitBNS has failed to provide resolutions, despite repeated user complaints and appeals to address these issues, leaving crores of user funds inaccessible.
"Attempts by users to seek legal recourse, including filing a joint complaint with the National Cyber Crime Portal, have yielded no results due to jurisdictional and infrastructural challenges," the petition said.
Emphasising the need for informed engagement with VDA in India and calling for regulatory measures, the petitioners prayed for the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry to investigate the “fraud” and establish guidelines for VDA service providers to ensure transparency and compliance.
As per the petition, BitBNS initially presented itself as a seamless and user-friendly medium for individuals to invest in virtual digital assets (VDAs) in India and the platform gained popularity for allowing users to deposit funds and trade in various cryptocurrencies effortlessly.
“However, since 2022, BitBNS has restricted withdrawals, setting arbitrary limits as low as Rs 5,000 per day. [U]sers have also raised serious concerns about discrepancies in their portfolio values and wallet balances, which did not align with market prices during the same period. These irregularities, combined with the inability to withdraw funds, have caused severe financial hardships and emotional trauma for the platform's users,” it said.
Despite multiple complaints and tickets filed by the affected users, the plea claimed that the platform has failed to address their grievances effectively, leaving crores of rupees stuck with no resolution.
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