The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that the Centre should consider introducing a specific offence of “digital arrest” under criminal law, with stringent penalties, and empower authorities to freeze the assets of accused persons once a prima facie case is established through reasoned material.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohan was hearing suo motu proceedings initiated to address the growing incidence of digital arrest scams and other cyber-enabled frauds.
Referring to the existing legal framework, the Bench observed that while such offences may involve elements of extortion or robbery, a dedicated statutory provision may be necessary to deal with the evolving nature of the crime.
“Do you have to define formally the case of digital arrest in penal laws? It has elements of extortion, robbery. Do you need to define this as a standalone offence with serious consequences, along with a provision that when something is found against an accused… his assets will be frozen,” CJI Kant remarked.
Justice Bagchi also noted the emerging threat posed by deepfake technology and said legislative intervention was necessary to address such offences.
“We have deepfakes now. It can be used for cheating and impersonation. You fight with the given tooth, but you need to chisel it as well. Under Article 142, we cannot define a crime,” the judge observed.
Attorney General R Venkataramani informed the Court that an Inter-Departmental Committee was preparing a comprehensive report to identify gaps in the existing legal and institutional framework.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta added that the government was already working on proposed legislation.
“There is a draft Bill which is coming up… It will take care of digital arrests, deepfakes etc,” Mehta said.
The proceedings stem from a suo motu case registered in October 2025 after an elderly couple informed the Court that fraudsters posing as officials of the CBI, Intelligence Bureau and the judiciary had duped them of ₹1.5 crore using forged Supreme Court orders and threats of arrest. The Court subsequently directed a CBI investigation and sought coordinated nationwide action against such scams.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Venkataramani said the CBI was currently investigating about 20 major cyber fraud cases involving losses exceeding ₹10 crore each, while other cases were being handled by state police agencies.
He also sought directions for the uniform implementation of an RBI standard operating procedure to temporarily place debit holds on suspected mule accounts, faster operationalisation of grievance redressal and money restoration modules, establishment of State Cyber Crime Coordination Centres, and requiring litigants to first use the grievance redress mechanism before approaching courts.
The Bench said it would pass directions in the matter on Wednesday.
