Mumbai, June 18: The Bombay High Court recently ordered alleged hacking group FulcrumSec not to leak, publish or further disseminate the 'stolen' sensitive information relating to children studying in thousands of schools in Mumbai and abroad run by a charitable trust, after the group allegedly demanded a ransom of USD 750,000.
The High Court also directed Google and other entities to block the email IDs used by the hacking group so as to prevent any further circulation of the confidential data.
Justice Arif Doctor passed the ex parte ad-interim order on June 12 while hearing a petition by Pratiksha Foundation Charitable Trust. The judge observed that the matter involved highly sensitive information concerning children and warranted urgent intervention.
Trust alleges data breach and extortion
Senior advocate Birendra Saraf, appearing for the trust, submitted that the applicants run several educational institutions with thousands of children enrolled. He told the court that the institutions had fallen victim to a hacking incident in which databases containing confidential and sensitive information had been compromised.
According to the applicants, the stolen information included details of children's daily movements, such as when and from where they travelled to school, along with medical records, "including those affecting the mental health and well-being of various children."
Saraf drew the court's attention to an email dated May 12, 2026, allegedly sent by FulcrumSec demanding USD 750,000 and threatening to make the data public if the ransom was not paid. The email, the court noted, described the sender as a "cyber criminal" and set out a stage-wise plan to enforce the threat.
The applicants said they had engaged with the sender only to ascertain its identity and undertook to place the complete correspondence before the court through an affidavit within two weeks.
Court cites risk to children's safety
The urgency of the proceedings arose after the alleged hackers sent an email on June 10, 2026, to one of the parents, disclosing confidential information relating to several children, particularly details concerning their mental health.
After examining the material, Justice Doctor described the disclosures as "most disturbing". The judge observed that making public "highly sensitive and confidential information, particularly with regard to the mental health issues of the children, could indeed have grave and deleterious effects" on them.
The court further noted that the hackers also appeared to possess information relating to the parents' vocation, income and the children's daily movements, which, if disclosed, could "potentially pose a grave risk to the safety of the children".
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Interim relief granted
Holding that a case for urgent ex parte relief had been made out, the court granted ad-interim relief in favour of the applicants. The matter has been posted for further hearing on interim relief on July 1, 2026.
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