Delhi High Court Seeks Response Of Centre, Delhi Police On PIL Against 'Digital Arrest' Scams, Proliferation Of Cyber Crimes

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice on a public interest litigation (PIL) against proliferation of cyber crimes including “digital arrest” scams where impostors forge fake judicial orders and arrest warrants to extort money from innocent citizens.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora sought response of the Union Government, Delhi Government, Delhi Police and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and listed the matter for hearing next on March of 19.

Filed by lawyers Akshya and Urvashi Bhatia, the plea highlights the issue of increasing cyber crimes and forging of court orders as well as fake FIRs and arrest warrants. It also addresses the issue of impersonation of government officials by imposters.

It is the petitioners' case that the current mechanism of reporting complaints with Delhi Police's Cyber Crime Unit is insufficient to tackle the evolving and new forms of cyber scams.

“The petition has been filed to bring to the notice of this court the issue of rapidly multiplying and mutating menace of cybercrime which has now taken an even perilous turn and emerged into the new kind of skullduggery, that is, 'digital arrest' scam which poses a greater severe threat...,” the plea states.

It adds that websites of Central as well as State cyber cells are inactive and do not post anything to increase awareness amongst people on the latest cyber crimes.

The plea further submits that the authorities must run awareness campaigns on the issue and the procedure of reporting cyber crime complaints must be made simpler.

Earlier this month, the bench while hearing the matter had remarked that the policing system has to reform to gear up to new challenges and a simple complaint filing system must be adopted by the authorities for such cases.

The court had added that nowadays a lot of celebrities are complaining that they never made endorsements but the same are coming.

“It is a genuine problem of cyber crimes today. You've to create special dedicated units…Policing system has to reform to gear up to new challenges. Policeman has to be well conversant with new computers,” the court told Delhi Police.

Title: AKSHYA AND ANR. V/s UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.