SC strikes at digital arrests
The Supreme Court on Monday issued a slew of notices to multiple departments, agencies and States in connection with digital arrest scams. A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked the States, including Opposition-ruled West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana, to accord consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act for probing digital arrest cases in their jurisdiction.
The court also issued notice to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and sought its response as to why AI or machine learning technology was not employed to identify mule accounts and freeze those which are used in cyber fraud cases.
The court, which passed the directions in a suo motu case registered on the complaint of an elderly couple from Haryana, noted that mostly senior citizens were targeted and their hard-earned money was extorted by the cyber criminals.
“The gravity and enormity of crimes can very well be judged by the fact that senior citizens were mostly targeted by the fraudsters by adopting different devices to dupe them,” the bench said.
It directed information technology (IT) intermediaries to provide details and cooperation to the CBI in probes related to digital arrest cases.
The bench also directed the CBI to seek assistance from Interpol to reach cyber criminals operating from offshore tax haven countries.
It asked the Department of Telecom to ensure that telecom service providers do not provide multiple SIM cards to one user or entity, which may be used in cyber crimes. “The Department of Telecom to submit a proposal for the consideration of this court which can be enforced by the telecom service providers to deter multiple SIM cards in one name or entity,” the bench said.
To ensure better coordination with the CBI, the bench asked all States and Union Territories (UTs) to set up a regional and State cybercrime coordination centre to deal with such online offences.
It asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to ensure that the views of various Union ministries, including Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, are put before it to deal with cybercrimes cases.
The top court said all states and UTs and their police agencies along with the CBI are free to freeze bank accounts used in defrauding citizens.
The top court directed the CBI to induct any officer from states and technical experts and associate them as members of the probe team on digital arrest cases.
On November 3, the top court said it needs to deal with digital arrest cases with an iron hand, while expressing shock over the scale of such cybercrime cases in the country, with over `3,000 crore allegedly extorted from victims, including senior citizens.
