The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought the stand of the Centre, Delhi government and the city police on a public interest litigation raising concerns with respect to the “new age” cyber crimes like “digital arrests”.
A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan issued notice to the governments as well as the Reserve Bank of India on the petition, which sought directions to create awareness and simplify procedures to file complaints against cyber crimes.
The bench, also comprising Justice Manmeet PS Arora, asked the authorities to file their response to the petition and listed it for further hearing on March 19.
The petitioners, lawyers Akshya and Urvashi Bhatia, said the perpetrators of “mutating menace” of cyber crime were now employing “sophisticated tactics” to exploit the system by forging of court orders, including those of the Supreme Court, as well as FIRs and arrest warrants to extort “settlement money” from innocent unsuspecting citizens.
Their plea said that one of the petitioners recently came across a “forged and fabricated” warrant of arrest, purportedly issued by a court in Delhi, pursuant to a “digital arrest” cyber scam.
“The petition has been filed to bring to the notice of this court the issue of rapidly multiplying and mutating menace of cyber crime which has now taken an even perilous turn and emerged into the new kind of skullduggery, that is, digital arrest’ scam which pose a greater severe threat and is of grave concern as these scams have now infiltrated into the very fabric of our criminal justice system, endangering its integrity and functionality,” the petition said.
It also highlighted that there were also instances of impersonation of government and police officials by the criminals, which exploits the public’s trust in institutions.
The plea further claimed that there was a lack of coordination between various government authorities and sought guidelines for better co-ordination in between the authorities for “swifter investigation” and to stop the transfer of the proceeds of crimes.
Earlier this month, the court had said cyber crime was a genuine problem which is troubling everyone and asked the authorities to consider increasing awareness among the public on the “important” issue.
It had said the policing system has to be reformed and police have to gear up to deal with these new challenges and need to be updated to new technology.
