SC to hear suo motu case on ‘digital arrest’ cyber fraud next week

The Supreme Court of India on Monday said it would hear next week a suo motu case on victims of “digital arrest” scams , a fast-growing cybercrime in which fraudsters impersonate law enforcement or government officials to extort money.

The matter was mentioned by Attorney General R Venkataramani before a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi. The top law officer informed the court that a status report on measures taken to tackle the fraud would be placed before it during the day and requested that the hearing be taken up next week. The bench agreed and said the case would be listed again at the earliest.

Digital arrest scams have emerged as a major cybercrime in India. In such frauds, criminals pose as officials from agencies such as the police, the Central Bureau of Investigation, or telecom and financial regulators. Through threatening video or audio calls, they falsely claim the victim is under investigation or “digitally arrested” and pressure them to transfer money to so-called verification or safe accounts. Victims are often kept on prolonged calls and psychologically coerced into making payments.

On February 9, the apex court took serious note of the scale of such cyber frauds, observing that more than Rs 54,000 crore had been siphoned off , an amount it described as nothing short of “robbery or dacoity”. The court said the losses were larger than the annual budgets of several small states and called for urgent coordinated action.

The bench directed the Centre to prepare a standard operating procedure (SoP) to deal with digital arrest scams in consultation with key stakeholders including the Reserve Bank of India, banks and the Department of Telecommunications.

The court also ordered the CBI to identify and investigate digital arrest cases and asked the governments of Delhi and Gujarat to grant sanction to the federal agency to proceed with the probes.

In addition, the apex court directed the RBI, the Department of Telecommunications and other agencies to hold a joint meeting and evolve a framework for providing compensation to victims of digital arrest fraud . It stressed that authorities should adopt a pragmatic and liberal approach while deciding compensation claims.

During earlier hearings, the attorney general informed the bench that the RBI had prepared an SoP for banks dealing with cyber fraud. The guidelines include provisions allowing banks to place temporary debit holds on suspicious accounts to prevent further transfer of funds in suspected digital fraud cases.

Issuing further directions, the court asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to formally adopt the RBI’s guidelines and ensure their implementation nationwide.

In December last year, the Supreme Court had also directed the CBI to conduct a unified pan-India probe into digital arrest scams and questioned why the RBI was not using artificial intelligence tools to detect and freeze bank accounts linked to cybercriminals .

Authorities say such scams are increasing across the country, with several recent cases involving victims losing crores of rupees after being intimidated by fraudsters posing as officials during video calls.