The Supreme Court has set aside the bail granted to Ranjit Kakoty, the alleged mastermind of the ₹250-crore TradingFX scam in Dibrugarh, Assam, overturning a Gauhati High Court order from November 2024.

The apex court acted on a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which argued that Kakoty had been wrongly released on default bail. The court noted that the High Court erred in interpreting the transition from the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (BNS), clarifying that offences under the IPC remain valid under the corresponding BNS provisions.

Kakoty, accused of defrauding over 1.5 lakh people, was arrested in 2024. The CBI had invoked Section 409 of the IPC within the statutory period, extending his custody to 90 days and filing a charge sheet within that time. The Gauhati High Court had granted bail, citing that IPC provisions were no longer applicable after the new criminal laws came into effect.

The Supreme Court rejected this view, observing that the IPC offence corresponded directly to Section 316(5) of the BNS, making the 90-day timeframe for filing the charge sheet applicable. The court thus restored the CBI’s position and cancelled Kakoty’s bail.

The CBI had taken over the investigation of 42 FIRs related to the scam from Assam Police in October 2024 and has since filed several charge sheets against the accused.