Author: Nujhat Attar
College – Sinhgad Law College, Pune
To the Point
A phone rings. Within minutes, an ordinary person is staring at a stranger on a video call who claims to be a police officer or a CBI official. The caller says there is a case against them. He tells them they cannot hang up, cannot leave the room, and cannot tell anyone, or they will be arrested immediately. This is what people now call a “digital arrest.” It sounds official. It feels terrifying in the moment. But it is not real. There is no such thing as an arrest carried out over WhatsApp or Skype. No warrant is shown because no warrant exists. Yet thousands of people in India, many of them elderly, have paid lakhs and even crores of rupees because the fear felt completely real, even though the arrest never was.
Use of Legal Jargon
A few legal terms come up again and again when people discuss this crime. An offence is called cognizable when it is serious enough that police can register a First Information Report and start investigating right away, without waiting for a magistrate’s permission. Most of the charges used against digital arrest fraudsters fall into this category. When a court takes up a matter on its own, without anyone filing a formal case, that is called suo motu cognisance. This is exactly how the Supreme Court got involved after hearing about a 73 year old woman who lost more than a crore of rupees to this scam.
The actual charges police use come from a mix of laws. Cheating by personation, found in Section 319 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (this was Section 419 under the old Indian Penal Code), covers someone who cheats another person by pretending to be someone they are not, which is exactly what happens when a fraudster claims to be a CBI officer. Criminal intimidation, under Section 351, means threatening someone with harm to scare them into doing something against their will. This is the tool that keeps a victim frozen on the call for hours. Extortion, under Section 308, means intentionally taking property or money from someone by putting them in fear of any injury. There is also a charge for impersonating a public servant under Section 204, and a separate provision under Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which specifically deals with cheating someone by pretending to be another person through a computer or phone.
A term that comes up often in the enforcement data is a mule account. This is a bank account, sometimes opened with someone else’s documents or handed over by a person paid a small amount to lend their account, that exists purely to receive stolen money and move it along quickly before the police can trace it. And when courts talk about a prima facie case, they simply mean that there is enough evidence on the surface to justify taking action, even before a full trial has happened. This is the standard the Supreme Court has said should be used before freezing the assets of anyone accused in these scams.
The Proof
The scale of this problem is not just anecdotal. It shows up clearly in the numbers. Indian citizens are estimated to have lost more than five and a half billion dollars, close to forty six thousand crore rupees, to digital arrest and related cyber frauds over the past six years. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre had flagged more than 2.47 million mule accounts by early 2026, deactivated 1.2 million fraudulent SIM cards connected to these scams, frozen 1.33 million mule accounts, and helped recover close to 5,489 crore rupees. A CBI led operation called Operation Chakra V raided 42 locations across five states in 2025 and found more than 8.5 lakh mule accounts feeding this network.
Behind these numbers are real people. In one Delhi case, a 92 year old man was falsely told that cases had been filed against him by the telecom regulator and the Maharashtra Police. He lost more than 2 crore rupees before officers from the Delhi Police’s IFSO unit managed to trace and recover the money. In another case, an elderly couple was reportedly cheated out of 1.5 crore rupees after fraudsters showed them forged Supreme Court orders carrying the name of a former Chief Justice. In one widely reported case, a victim was kept on video calls without a break for 56 hours straight until they finally gave in and transferred the money, simply out of exhaustion and fear.
These are not rare glitches in an otherwise well policed system. They point to a method that has been tested, refined, and repeated at a large scale, helped along by platforms that fraudsters exploit faster than they can be shut down. WhatsApp alone reported banning more than 9,400 accounts linked to digital arrest scams in a single twelve week period in early 2026.
Abstract
Digital arrest has no legal existence in India, yet it has become one of the country’s most damaging and fastest growing forms of cyber fraud. This article looks at how the scam works, the mix of provisions under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 that police currently rely on this as there is an absence of a dedicated legal provision, and the Supreme Court’s ongoing suo moto case has urged the Parliament to introduce separate law making this conduct a separate criminal offence, providing penalties and enabling authorities to freeze or seize the assests of those accused . Using recent enforcement data, court observations, and specific reported cases, the article argues that while the existing laws can be used to prosecute fraudsters after the harm is done, they were never built for a crime that relies on real time fear and pressure delivered through a screen. A dedicated law, faster coordination between agencies, and stronger responsibility placed on messaging platforms are all overdue.
Case Laws
1. Suo Motu Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 03 of 2025, In Re: Victims of Digital Arrest Related to Forged Documents: the Supreme Court took up this matter in October 2025 after a 73 year old woman from Ambala complained that fraudsters used a forged court order, carrying the name of a former Chief Justice, to keep her under a fake digital arrest and take more than 1 crore rupees from her. The Bench said that using fake judicial orders damages the public’s trust in the courts and cannot be treated lightly. It ordered a CBI investigation and asked for coordinated action across states. In July 2026, hearing the same case, a Bench led by the Chief Justice of India urged the government to formally define digital arrest as a separate criminal offence with strict punishment, and suggested a system to freeze the assets of accused persons quickly once there is enough evidence against them.
2. Satender Kumar Antil v. Central Bureau of Investigation: in a July 2025 order linked to the wider cyber fraud proceedings, the Supreme Court held that the proper process for serving police notices under Section 35 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita cannot be skipped, even in fast moving cyber cases. It was a reminder that speed cannot come at the cost of fair procedure for the accused.
3. Delhi Police IFSO recovery, May 2025: this is not a court judgment, but it is often cited as an example of how police can trace fraudsters across state and even international borders through quick SIM and bank account tracking. The investigation led to the recovery of more than 2 crore rupees taken from a 92 year old victim, and the money was returned to him.
Together, these cases show a judiciary that clearly understands how serious this problem has become, while also being honest about what it can and cannot do on its own. As the Bench pointed out, the Supreme Court’s power to deliver complete justice under Article 142 of the Constitution cannot be used to create a brand new criminal offence. That job belongs to Parliament, which is exactly why the Court keeps pushing the government to act instead of trying to solve this through the courtroom alone.
Conclusion
Digital arrest scams work not because the law has nothing to say about cheating, threats, or impersonation, but because none of these provisions were written with a crime like this in mind. Police can piece together charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act to prosecute a fraudster once he is caught, but piecing together old laws after the money is already gone is a poor substitute for a system built to stop the scam while it is still happening. The Supreme Court’s ongoing intervention, the growing recovery numbers from agencies like the I4C, and the steady stream of cases involving elderly victims all point to the same conclusion. India needs a dedicated law for this offence, a faster way to freeze stolen assets, and real accountability from messaging platforms to catch impersonation before it reaches people’s phones.
Until Parliament passes the law that is reportedly being drafted, the best protection remains simple awareness. No police officer, no CBI official, and no judge in India has ever carried out an arrest over a video call, and none of them ever will. Fear is the only real weapon this scam has, and the simplest way to defeat it is to stop being afraid of a phone screen.
