New Delhi, November 14, 2026
The Supreme Court has described organised “digital arrest” scams as “digital dacoity,” observing that those who target vulnerable citizens particularly senior citizens and retirees through video calls must face stringent, even ruthless, action. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, made the observations on October 28 while refusing to consolidate 35 criminal cases pending against two persons in 12 states.
“Digital arrests and such cyber offences are digital dacoity… there is no question of giving any judicial forum to such persons,” the Bench said. Chief Justice Surya Kant went further: “Extortion is the simplest offence. This (digital arrest scams), in our considered opinion, is digital dacoity. You do it through video calls.” He added that the perpetrators “must be dealt with in the most ruthless manner. If the law has any scope to punish them before trial, that must also be adopted.”
The remarks came during the hearing of a petition filed by Gourab Kumar Saha and Nidhi Bhandari. They had sought clubbing of the 35 cases registered against them in states including Delhi, Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana and Gujarat. The allegation was that they allowed their company’s bank account to be used as a “mule account” an account used to receive and layer proceeds of fraud. The Bench pointed to one instance in which an 81-year-old resident of Ernakulam in Kerala was allegedly defrauded of ₹1.90 crore, with the money deposited into the petitioners’ account.
The Court declined to interfere with the separate investigations. Justice Bagchi observed that an accused’s convenience could not override the rights of victims or investigating agencies: “Your right to seek transfer of cases to a place of your convenience cannot override the right of the victims and the investigating agency… We do not take your weight to dilute the investigation across the country.” The Chief Justice asked whether a victim whose money had been routed abroad (for instance, to Hong Kong or Bangkok) could reasonably be expected to pursue remedies there. After the Bench made its reluctance clear, the petitioners withdrew the plea.
What ‘digital arrest’ involves
There is no legal procedure called “digital arrest” in India. No law-enforcement agency can arrest a person or demand money over a phone or video call. In practice, fraudsters impersonate officers of the police, CBI, Enforcement Directorate, or other agencies—and sometimes judicial authorities. They contact victims (often elderly people), claim that their Aadhaar, bank accounts or mobile numbers are linked to serious crimes, and display forged documents, including fake court orders. Victims are kept on video calls for hours or days under the pretext of an ongoing investigation, told not to contact family or lawyers, and pressured to transfer money to “safe” or “verification” accounts controlled by the fraudsters. The receiving accounts are frequently mule accounts operated by others in the network.
The Supreme Court has been monitoring the problem through a suo motu case titled In Re: Victims of Digital Arrest Related to Forged Documents. It took cognisance after a senior citizen couple reported being defrauded of a large sum (reported in various accounts as around ₹1–1.5 crore) by people who used forged Supreme Court documents while posing as officials of investigative agencies and the judiciary.
Broader directions on banks, platforms and compensation
In related proceedings, the same Bench has issued several directions aimed at prevention and victim redress. In an order arising from an October 29 hearing (uploaded later), it directed WhatsApp and other digital intermediaries to inform the Court of the preventive measures they propose and to submit the same to the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C). The matter is listed for further hearing on November 23. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for WhatsApp, informed the Court that the platform had already taken action against thousands of accounts linked to such activity and was developing tools to flag suspicious accounts.
The Bench has also emphasised that the Reserve Bank of India’s proposed regulatory measures must require financial institutions to compensate victims where an investigation establishes that the fraud occurred because the institution failed to exercise due diligence. The compensation, the Court said, should be not less than the amount lost by the customer. It has called for preventive safeguards such as temporarily suspending unusual or suspicious transactions that do not match an account’s past pattern, automatically intimating the nearest police station, and physical verification of such transactions. Banks have been described as needing to act as a “protective umbrella” for customers.
Earlier interim directions in the same suo motu proceedings have focused on standard operating procedures for handling mule accounts, operationalising grievance-redressal and money-restoration modules under the Ministry of Home Affairs framework, coordination by an inter-departmental committee, public awareness, and examination of whether the CBI’s monetary threshold for taking up cases should be lowered when multiple frauds form part of the same organised network.
Scale of the problem
Figures placed before the Court and reported in the public domain indicate that digital arrest and related cyber frauds have caused substantial losses, though the precise numbers vary by the period and definition used. One set of submissions referred to victims losing around ₹800 crore so far in 2026 even as reported incidents declined. Broader digital-fraud losses have at times been described by the Court as running into tens of thousands of crores—amounts larger than the budgets of several smaller states—and equated to robbery or dacoity. Complaints of digital arrest scams on the national cybercrime portal have numbered in the tens of thousands in recent years, with a large share targeting senior citizens.
The October 28 observations reinforce the Court’s consistent stance that these are not ordinary economic offences. By equating them to “digital dacoity” carried out through video calls, the Bench has signalled that both the principal fraudsters and those who facilitate the movement of money through mule accounts can expect little judicial sympathy when they seek procedural advantages that might dilute investigations. With further hearings scheduled later this month, the Court continues to press platforms, banks and the executive for concrete preventive and compensatory measures.