New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (November 3) called for stringent action against digital arrest scams after it was informed that Indians had been defrauded of nearly Rs 3,000 crore in such cyber frauds.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi were hearing a suo moto case on digital arrests prompted by an elderly couple that had written to the Supreme Court on the matter last month, Bar and Bench reported.

"It’s shocking that almost Rs 3,000 crore has been collected from the victims. And this is just in our country. If we don’t pass harsh and stringent orders, the problem will magnify. We will deal with this with iron hands," the court said.

In the previous hearing, the court had directed all states to file details of first information reports (FIRs) registered by them, Bar and Bench reported. The court had also asked if the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was equipped to tackle all such cases across the country.

The Union home affairs ministry and the CBI then submitted a sealed cover report on the matter while Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that a separate unit in the home ministry was dealing with the issue of cyber frauds.

The court has listed the matter for November 10.

Background

The court had taken cognisance of the issue after a senior citizen couple wrote to the Supreme Court about scammers swindling them of Rs 1.5 crore by impersonating CBI officials, Intelligence Bureau officers and members of the judiciary. 

The fraud took place between September 1-16, the couple wrote. The scammers had forged Supreme Court orders and threatened the couple with arrest, they wrote.

Subsequent FIRs filed with the cybercrime branch at Ambala had unearthed an organised pattern where senior citizens were targeted for such frauds, the report said, prompting the court to seek responses from the CBI and the home ministry on October 17. 

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