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Informist, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Reserve Bank of India to prepare and circulate a standard operating procedure in four weeks to deal with mule accounts or accounts linked to cyber-enabled fraud. The standard operating procedure will include a grievance redressal module as well as a money restoration module, with the central bank taking steps to raise public awareness of these modules, the court said. 

 

A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said that a copy of the final standard operating procedure should be filed with the Registrar General of all high courts. The Registrar General of high courts will bring the grievance redressal mechanism to the notice of the courts and other adjudicating authorities dealing with freezing of bank accounts in cyber fraud cases, Chief Justice Kant said. An aggrieved person will be encouraged to avail the mechanism in the first instance, he said. However, doing so should not be a bar to the exercise of any constitutional, statutory or other legal remedies available in law, he said.

 

The top court said that the states should notify and operationalise their state cyber crime coordination centres within four weeks. The states should take steps to adopt an electronic-zero first information report mechanism, in consultation with the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, a nodal agency established by the Ministry of Home Affairs to handle cybercrime. The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre will ensure necessary follow-up and provide the requisite assistance to the states for implementation of these directions.

 

The bench comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana asked the authorities to take appropriate steps to ensure expeditious disposal of matters relating to the freezing of bank accounts arising out of cyber-enabled financial frauds. The inter-departmental committee, formed by the government to combat digital arrest cyber scams, should consult with banks and intermediaries regarding technological measures that may be adopted to prevent digital arrest scams, assist the recovery of defrauded amounts, facilitate probe in these cases and ensure cooperation and compliance with all applicable statutory obligations and legal requirements, the bench said. 

 

Further, the inter-departmental committee should examine suggestions regarding reduction of the existing monetary threshold for the Central Bureau of Investigation's probe and aggregation of cases involving organised networks, the court said. The committee will also issue directions to all the states to undertake awareness programmes related to cybercrimes. The committee is directed to examine and discuss the proposal for a shared liability and victim compensation framework, the court said. 

 

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Department of Telecommunications and Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre should examine the proposal relating to time-based restrictions on telecom services for audio and video calls, the court said. 

 

The apex court was purusing a status report filed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre. The report primarily states that the number of complaints received on the National Cyber Crime Reporting portal pertaining to digital arrest scams has sharply declined from 123,672 in 2024 to 58,249 in 2025, and to 16,377 for the period ending Jun. 30. The defrauded amounts have also substantially reduced, it said. While this trend is certainly encouraging, continued monitoring remains indispensable, the court said. It asked the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre to file a fresh status report before the next date of hearing on Sept. 16. 

 

In December, the Supreme Court had ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the digital arrest scams taking place across the country, saying the premier investigating agency's immediate attention is required. The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the rising number of incidents of scamsters using "digital arrest" to extort money from citizens after a complaint that a forged Supreme Court order was being used to con people. The court had termed the siphoning of over INR 540 billion in such cases as absolute "robbery" or "dacoity".  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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