Supreme Court entrusts CBI with pan-India probe into digital arrest cases, asks States to accord assent

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the CBI to carry out a unified pan-India probe into digital arrest scam cases and asked the RBI as to why it was not using Artificial Intelligence to find out and freeze bank accounts used by cyber criminals.

Digital arrest is a growing form of cyber crime in which fraudsters pose as law enforcement or court officials or personnel from government agencies to intimidate victims through audio and video calls. They hold the victims hostage and put pressure on them to pay money.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked the States, including opposition ruled West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana, to accord assent to CBI for probing digital arrest cases in their jurisdiction.

It issued notice to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and sought its response as to why Artificial Intelligence (AI) or machine learning technology was not employed to freeze bank accounts used in cyber fraud cases.

The top 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 by cyber criminals and their hard-earned money extorted.

It directed Information Technology intermediaries to provide details and cooperation to CBI in probe related to digital arrest cases.

The bench also directed the CBI to take 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.

To ensure better coordination with the CBI, the bench asked all States, UTs to set up a regional and state cyber crime coordination centre to deal with such online offences.

It asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to ensure views of various union ministries, including Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Telecom, Finance ministry and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, are put before it to deal with cyber crimes cases.

The top court said all States and Union Territories and their police agencies along with CBI are free to freeze bank accounts used in defrauding citizens.

At the outset, the bench directed the CBI to probe bank officials who are hand-in-glove and help in operating mule accounts with fraudsters in duping citizens.

A mule account is a bank account in some other names used by cyber criminals to receive and transfer illicit funds, making it harder to trace the original source of the money for the probe agencies.

On November 3, the top court said it needs to deal with digital arrest cases with an iron hand as it expressed shock over the scale of such cyber crime cases in the country, with over Rs 3,000 crore allegedly extorted from victims, including senior citizens.

It had perused two sealed cover reports submitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).