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The Union authorities has swung into enactment to combat integer arrests, which has deprived citizens, mostly aged and the susceptible of thousands of crores of hard-earned money, by forming an inter-departmental committee (IDC) chaired by its Special Secretary (Internal Security) which has already held aggregate meeting, of which the latest was attended by representatives of online platforms Google, WhatsApp, Telegram and Microsoft.
Editorial | Compound effect: On integer apprehension scams
The authorities has informed the Supreme Court, which is proceeding the lawsuit connected January 13, successful a presumption study that inputs to combat integer apprehension scams person been received from the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The high-level inter-departmental committee (IDC) was formed connected December 26, 2025, and has officials from aggregate agencies to “comprehensively analyse each facets of the contented of integer arrests”.
Chaired by the Special Secretary (Internal Security), the IDC has representations astatine the level and supra of Joint Secretary officers from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), DoT, Ministry of External Affairs, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Law & Justice, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, RBI, Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, Delhi Police and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), with its Chief Executive Officer acting arsenic the member-secretary.
Attorney-General R. Venkataramani would be the meetings of the IDC connected a regular basis.
The IDC was formed aft a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant had directed inter-departmental Ministerial consultations, nether the guidance of the Attorney General, to wide the mode to extremity the bane which has affected a ample populace.
A striking lawsuit earlier the tribunal was that of a septuagenarian pistillate Supreme Court lawyer, represented by advocator Vipin Nair, whose full beingness savings was wiped retired by scamsters posing arsenic constabulary officers, revealing that the fraud played was truthful convincing that adjacent lawyers autumn prey.
The Centre said the IDC would analyse and usher enforcement agencies analyse “real-time issues”; place applicable legislations, rules, circulars and implementation gaps, suggest corrective measures and supply inputs for further directions, arsenic whitethorn beryllium required, by the Supreme Court.
The IDC, which had met thrice successful December 2025 and successful January 2026, said it would convene astatine regular intervals to “ensure time-bound and coordinated compliance”. The latest gathering with the societal media intermediaries, hunt and messaging platforms was held connected January 6.
The authorities sought astatine slightest a month’s clip to get inputs from the remaining members of the IDC, clasp further deliberations and travel up with a “consolidated and considered outcome” earlier the apex court.
On December 1, the tribunal had tasked the CBI to ace down connected ‘digital arrest’ scammers and their associates, giving the bureau a “free hand” to motorboat an anti-corruption probe into bankers progressive successful the opening of mule accounts linked to cyber crimes.
It had expressed daze astatine the “staggering amounts” integer apprehension scammers person been capable to siphon disconnected from India. Digital arrests were wide reported successful India since 2022, done 2024, erstwhile fraudsters would impersonate constabulary officers and adjacent judges to endanger guiltless radical with “online arrest” and scam wealth from them.
A enactment fixed by the Union authorities successful the Supreme Court showed that ₹3000 crore has already been scammed by fraudsters from victims based connected statistic gathered from reported complaints of integer arrests alone.
The Chief Justice had said that lapses connected the portion of bankers to let specified a large-scale scam to hap and adjacent thrive whitethorn magnitude to ‘deficiency successful service’. The tribunal said determination ought to beryllium a strategy to alert customers against specified scams.
