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SC calls for standalone law on digital arrest frauds, Centre says Bill in the works
The Supreme Court urged the Centre to make digital arrest a standalone offence with stricter penalties as a draft law is being prepared.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that digital arrest frauds require to be defined as a standalone offence with harsh punishment and a provision to attach assets of accused after the Centre said that work is underway to come out with a draft bill covering digital arrest cases preferably to be presented in the present session of Parliament.
The suggestion by the court came in a suo motu petition on the victims of digital arrest fraud where it is examining steps being taken by an inter-departmental committee (IDC) of the Centre supervising action against such cyber frauds on multiple fronts.
SC seeks standalone law on digital arrest frauds
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said, “Do we need to formally define digital arrest? Though it is a clear case of extortion and involves robbery and some element of dacoity as well, we need to define it as a standalone offence with severe penal consequences.”
Noting the occurrence of such frauds being reported throughout the country, the bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, said, “This must be accompanied with a provision that where, prima facie, there is a finding of involvement of a person, all his movable and immovable assets must be frozen.”
Centre says draft Bill likely this Parliament session
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, informed the bench, “On the statutory changes to be made, I must inform the court that there is a draft Bill coming up possibly in this Parliament session on digital arrest fraud.”
The bench said that the Centre may also be required to have a relook at the Information Technology Act, 2000, in the age of deepfakes and digital arrest cases. “Changes may be required to offences such as hacking by impersonation (section 66D) in such cases. Today, there are several technological tools for cheating and impersonation that require you to have a relook.”
It said that the coming times may require law to adapt to technological advancements where a robot may be commissioned for a crime and a drone may be accused of committing an act of trespass. “We know that you have tools to fight with. We want you to chisel your tools. Our difficulty is that under Article 142 of the Constitution (court’s extraordinary power to pass any order to do complete justice), we cannot define a crime.”
Also read: New I-T Act to reduce disputes, simplify compliance: Official
Court reviews progress, seeks stronger victim safeguards
The bench posted the matter for further hearing on Wednesday as it was presented with two notes compiled by the Attorney General R Venkataramani and senior advocate NS Nappinai, assisting the court as amicus curiae. Venkataramani’s note gave a brief of steps taken so far by the IDC and sought certain orders to be passed for strengthening the mechanism to prevent digital arrest frauds from taking place.
According to him, the number of digital arrest cases have come down significantly from over a hundred thousand complaints in 2024 involving ₹1,935 crore to over 15,000 complaints worth ₹481 crore. Further, he stated, the law enforcement agencies have been able to successfully complete the investigation in over 36,000 cases and have successfully restored a sum of over ₹18 crore to the victims.
While high-value digital arrest cases are automatically marked to CBI, which currently is probing 20 cases, the remaining complaints are handled by the respective state police forces.
At the same time, Nappinai claimed that the digital arrest cases continue unabated as she highlighted the need for a “kill switch” by which chat platforms such as WhatsApp can automatically terminate a video call extending beyond 6 to 12 hours or even generate a pop-up to the user indicating the call to be suspect.
In her interaction with victims, she said that victims need an expedited “victim compensation framework” as their cases either remain pending in consumer courts or before an adjudicating officer under the IT Act.
The bench asked Venkataramani on the possibility of having a common authority to deal with digital arrest complaints. With the Centre proposing to bring a law, the bench said, “Why don’t you have a structured organisation to look into all this. It could be some kind of a body having statutory or legislative force behind it.” Presently, the bench noted that the matter is being examined separately at various fronts - RBI for banks, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for social media intermediaries and Ministry of Home Affairs for law enforcement agencies.
Also read: After username row, MeitY eyes uniform standards for messaging apps
The court said it will pass further orders in the matter as IDC recommended immediate operationalisation of protocols and modules proposed by it in the past for effective and smooth coordination between various stakeholders in providing relief to victims of digital arrest fraud.
