The Supreme Court has been moved seeking setting up of an expert committee under the supervision of the sitting or retired judge of the top court to examine the possible ways to control the cyber frauds which have witnessed a spike in the cases of cyber frauds in the recent years.
Citing the instances where judges became the victims of cybercrime, the petitioner advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav in his PIL has referred to media reports of the former Chief Justice of India, Justice RM Lodha was duped of Rs one lakh in 2019 after he revived emails from the account of another retired Supreme Court judge seeking “emergency funds.”
The PIL petitioner advocate cited another incident in which a scamster posing as Chief Justice DY Chandrachud wrote that he has an important meeting of the Collegium but is stuck in Connaught Place and needs Rs 500 and promised to return the money. In yet another incident, that came to light earlier this month, the petitioner advocate Yadav said that a cybercrime gang posed as officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation and staged a fake virtual courtroom, documents closely resembling original ones and with one of them impersonating as CJI duped Vardhman Group head SP Oswal of Rs 7 crore.
The petition further stated that in 2023 Justice Ramesh Dhanuka, retired Chief justice of the Bombay High Court, had lodged an FIR with the Colaba police saying an unidentified person sent him a message asking to update his Pan card details, and when he opened the link and submitted the Pan card details, Rs 49,998 was
siphoned off from his bank account.
Referring to another 2023 instance of the misuse of the identity of Karnataka High Court judge, Justice G Narendra, the petitioner advocate says that he too was about to fall prey to cyber frauds as he received calls from various mobile numbers and fraudsters sent him OTPs. On August 16, 2024, he registered a criminal complaint at the Tilak Marg police station.
Seeking a proper mechanism to address the legal gaps and the concerns which abound, as the cybercrime rises unabated in India, the public interest plea says, “In today’s interconnected digital landscape, the prevalence of cybercrime has reached unprecedented levels, posing significant threats to individuals, businesses and nations alike. As technology advances, so do the tactics employed by the cybercriminals, ranging from sophisticated hacking and ransomware attacks to identify theft and online fraud.”
The PIL refers to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics revealing a big increase in the cases of cybercrime from 21,796 incidents in 2017 to 27,248 in 2018.
Having pointed to the rise in the cases of cybercrimes, the petition says: “There is a need to have a legal framework in the name of Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, which needs to be strengthened by expanding the definitions of cybercrimes and enhancing the legal framework for cybersecurity. This should hold intermediaries responsible for content and data hosted on their platforms, compelling them to adhere to stringent data protection measures.”