Delhi HC seeks Centre's response on PIL against menace of cyber crimes
Jan 30, 2024
New Delhi [India], January 30 : The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre, Delhi Government, Reserve Bank of India and Police on a Public Interest Litigation highlighting the rapidly multiplying and mutating menace of cyber crimes.
The bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora issued notice to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of NCT Delhi, Reserve Bank of India and Delhi Police and listed the matter for March 19, 2024.
The petitioners Akshaya and Urvashi Bhatia, practising lawyers through plea stated that the perpetrators of these cyber scams are employing sophisticated tactics to mock and exploit the entire system.Their modus operandi involves malevolent actors who are now brazenly forging and fabricating fake court orders and arrest warrants purportedly issued by the esteemed Supreme Court of India to successfully extort 'settlement money' from innocent unsuspecting citizens.
According to the plea, increasing cyber crimes now have taken an even more perilous turn and emerged into a new kind of skullduggery, that is, "digital arrest" scams which pose a greater severe threat and are of grave concern as these scams have now infiltrated into the very fabric of our criminal justice system, endangering its integrity and functionality.
By assuming false identities, they are not only exploiting the trust placed in these institutions but also eroding public confidence in the criminal justice system. This not only undermines the credibility of the system but also poses a direct threat to the safety and well-being of innocent citizens, the plea stated.
The plea further stated that the petitioners have themselves experienced the ploy of sophisticated tactics employed by the scammers first-hand through their family members or have come into personal knowledge about the occurrence of the same having heard from their close friends.
The plea further sought directions to the respondents to enforce stringent measures to curb the proliferation of identified cyber scams vis-a-vis collaborating with relevant stakeholders/ authorities and dedicating allocated expenditure to running extensive awareness campaigns on social media platforms and through offline print mediums to educate the public on preventive measures and spread caution with respect to the cyber scams plagues meeting the above-mentioned criteria.
The plea further sought appropriate direction to the respondents to define criteria to identify, earmark and categorise recurring cyber scam complaints as a major security cyber plague and establish a mechanism for prompt identification and declaration of cyber scams meeting the defined criteria.
