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However, since the beginning of 2025, the Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognizance of the troubles of a senior citizen couple and has taken this matter seriously. In this typical case of fraud, criminals pose as officials and claim that the bank accounts of senior citizens are linked to drug-related activities. The purported Supreme Court orders along with case numbers and seals were shared after the video call. Rs 1.5 crore were demanded and transferred to accounts to avoid the rigors of the ‘law’; Much later when the couple got verification from the Supreme Court registry, they realized that they were the victims of an elaborate fraud.
The matter came up again before the Supreme Court bench in early November. The Court said that the use of forged orders of the Supreme Court to deceive citizens is ‘not merely fraud but a direct attack on the authority of the judiciary and the sanctity of the law’. The central government confirmed that the scale of the scam was “far greater than initial estimates”. The court suggested expanding the investigation from individual cases to larger scams, remarking that all assistance would be given ‘otherwise, this problem will escalate, and the victims are older people.’ A domain expert is to be appointed as amicus curiae and the investigation is to be conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Then what is the definition of cyber crime that is talked about so much? Surprisingly, the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act) is of no help. the closest we have Section 66 of the Information Technology Act Which talks about computer related offenses (punishment ranging from imprisonment which may extend to 3 years or fine which may extend to 3 years). 5 lakh or both) as referred to in section 43.
The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal defines cyber crime as ‘any unlawful act where a computer or communication device or computer network is used to commit a crime or to facilitate a crime’. The portal lists 24 different types of potential cyber crimes ranging from child pornography, cyber bullying, cyber stalking, cyber grooming, online job fraud, online sextortion to impersonation and identity fraud.
It is these last type of cases that are currently the subject of the Supreme Court’s attention. Jharkhand Judicial Academy has a useful SOP for investigating officers; It has defined cyber crime as ‘where a computer is either an object or the subject of a crime’ – in other words any criminal activity that uses a computer as a device, target or means to perpetrate a further crime falls within the scope of cyber crime.
The issue has been studied in depth in the 245th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, presented in late August this year on ‘Cyber Crime: Impact, Protection and Prevention’. It recommended the need to create a cyber crime law that defines cyber crimes and addresses issues of emerging technologies.
The report calls for a review of the IT Act 2000 as many serious offenses are bailable; it It has recommended amending the Act to make the offenses more severely punishable and make intermediaries responsible for paying compensation to victims. The report notes that the law currently does not differentiate between user-generated and AI-generated content and suggests the establishment of a framework that mandates watermarking of all content.
The report found that while RBI had ordered all banks to migrate to the domain ‘bank.in’ by October 2025, the migration process was not completed. It has been suggested to set a time limit. It suggested implementing behavioral biometrics that analyzes customer patterns to detect unusual suspicious activity. The need for international cooperation as well as coordination between various organizations has also been stressed. It emphasizes the need to set up 24×7 units for effective coordination.
The Supreme Court had commented with surprise on that The victims were defrauded of Rs 3000 crores. This is the amount in which the victims have come forward to lodge the complaint. The actual amount and number of cases is likely to be much higher as many victims do not file any complaints for fear of bad publicity. For example, Hyderabad’s cyber crime police had registered 196 FIRs in October 2025.
Even in cases where complaints have been filed, the number of recovered funds lost and criminals booked is very low. This is in the very nature of cyber crime, where criminals are never seen physically, rather they operate in the shadows, in the anonymity of computer networks. Such crimes shake the common citizen’s faith in the enforcement machinery.
Cyber crimes also increase the need for data privacy – obviously resulting in leakage of data to which criminals have access. The 2023 amendment rules to the IT Act seek to address this. The government has made strong efforts to alert citizens about cyber crimes through various publicity campaigns. Given the sheer scale of the almost daily occurrence of such crimes in cities and towns across the country, clearly much remains to be done. The matter is going to come up before the Supreme Court this month and we will have to wait for the government’s response to the concerns raised by the apex court.
The recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee report could be a possible way forward. We need better tech savvy enforcement officers; It is important that our industry also comes forward to help the government. This will help the enforcement agencies to stay abreast of the latest technology to tackle this menace. We must not forget that such crimes also have a serious impact on national security. Till then all citizens will have to remain alert.
,The author, Najeeb Shah, is the former chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Opinions are personal.