SUO MOTU Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Day in and day out it has been observed by this court in several electronic, print and social media reports that over the last few years, Cyber Crimes and the offences like 'digital arrest' have increased worldwide and in our country thousands of innocent people have been trapped in it and they have lost huge amount of their hard earned money and also lost their lives. Increase of 'digital arrest' cases have been highlighted the alarming rise of such scams targeting the individuals from every walk of life.

(2.) 'Digital arrest' is a new and innovative tactic employed by scammers/cybercriminals to defraud gullible victims and extort money. The modus operandi in this cybercrime method is that fraudsters pose as law enforcement officials such as Police, Enforcement Directorate, CBI, etc. and manipulate them into believing that they have committed some serious crime.

(3.) The scammers deceive the victim into believing that he or she has been put under 'digital arrest' and will be prosecuted if he/she does not pay the scammers an amount of money as demanded by them. As per cyber experts, the fraudsters in this tactic are using fear and sense of urgency against the victims and ensure that they part with their money before they realize that it is a scam. Cyber criminals/scammers often use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scare victims by mimicking voice of their loved ones and family members in order to extort money from them.