NEW DELHI: Despite 75% reduction in cyber-crime and digital arrest incidents, Supreme Court continued to push authorities for prompt action against cyber fraudsters by issuing a slew of directives Tuesday, including an expeditious decision on a ‘kill switch’ in phones to prevent these crimes and placing on hold monies transferred to mule accounts.Attorney general R Venkataramani told a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana that number of complaints on national cyber crime portal had gone down from 1,23,672 in 2024 to 16,377 in 2026 (as of June 30). Besides, an Rs 18 crore has been restored to around 36,000 cyber fraud victims, he said in a status report.While appreciating the progress made in the matter, which the court is monitoring after taking suo motu cognisance on Oct 16 last year, bench directed Reserve Bank of India to formally “adopt and circulate formal standard operating procedure within four weeks detailing the action to be taken by banks for placing temporary hold on amounts and accounts in mule accounts linked to cyber fraud”.Accepting a suggestion of amicus curiae N S Nappinai, SC also directed states, UTs and law enforcing agencies to take steps for expeditious adoption and operationalisation of grievance redressal and money restoration modules of home ministry, which should be given adequate publicity to enable victims to take required remedial measures.CJI-led bench directed “all adjudicatory authorities, including RBI ombudsman, consumer fora, courts and law enforcing authorities – to ensure that amounts recovered from fraudsters are disbursed to victims of digital arrest expeditiously”. It asked RBI to file a status report on this aspect by Sept 16, the next date of hearing.Even as CBI continues investigations into digital scams, the court asked agency to examine AG’s suggestion for lowering the present threshold of Rs 10 crore for taking up investigations into cases where the same gang of scamsters are involved.
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“The proposal concerning a time-based ‘Kill switch’ for audio and video calls may be examined by ministry of information and technology, Department of Telecom and Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) in consultation with telecom intermediaries and a brief note on technical feasibility, efficacy, safeguards and alternatives be placed on record,” the bench said.It asked Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC), which coordinates with various departments for steps to prevent digital arrest and cyber crime offences, to issue necessary directives on setting up of cyber crime grievance redressal mechanism and restoration of defrauded amounts to victims.
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