Policing System Has To Reform To Gear Up To New Challenges: Delhi High Court On Proliferation Of Cyber Crimes, Forging Of Legal Documents

While hearing a public interest litigation on proliferation of cyber crimes, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday said 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.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora was hearing a plea on the issue of increasing cyber crimes and forging of court orders as well as fake FIRs and arrest warrants.

The petitioners contended that the websites of Central as well as State Cyber Cell are inactive and do not post anything to increase awareness amongst people on the latest cyber crimes happening in the country.

It was also submitted that the cyber dost portal developed by the Union Government has not been updated since September 2022 and the website only contains certain articles which are not sufficient to update citizens about latest and ongoing modus operandi of fraudsters and those committing cyber crimes.

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

Calling it an important issue, the court however said that the prayers mentioned in the petition were different than what was being sought for in oral submissions.

Calling them “unworkable prayers”, the court asked the petitioners' counsel to amend the petition and incorporate the changes while listing the matter for further hearing on January 30.

The court also asked the Delhi Police's counsel to take instructions on having a simple digital facility for people to lodge cyber crime complaints via emails

“Suppose someone transmitted money. Money has to be blocked immediately. It cannot be done till you have a digital system in place. Otherwise money will cross boundaries of this country. You won't be able to reach it,” the court told Delhi Police's counsel.

It added: “Even if the money is given through banks, it will go out of the country in 15 minutes. Do two or three things. I think they (petitioners) are giving good suggestions. One is to create awareness and the other is to have a (simple) mechanism to lodge complaints.”

Furthermore, the court also said 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.

The court also asked Central Government's counsel to take instructions on having a unified system of checking the genuineness of orders passed by the authorities.

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