Scamsters posing as ED, CBI officials: Delhi High Court bats for system where person can verify whether he is being probed

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Central government to consider having a unified system where an individual can verify whether he or she is being investigated by federal agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department (IT Department) or the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) [Akshya and Anr v Union of India and Ors]..A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora passed the order after a plea highlighted an increase in cyber-crimes where scamsters pose as officers of the police, ED and CBI and try to extort money from people by falsely claiming that they are being probed.The Court asked the counsel appearing for the Central government to obtain instructions on whether a facility can be provided to prevent such fraudsters from cheating people.“Some methodology of cross-checking has to be there whether these summonses are genuine or not. People are getting notices… You shall take instruction on this… There are four to five central agencies. There is ED, CBI, DRI, Income Tax Department etc. There has to be some way of cross checking if they have done it or not,” the Court remarked..The public interest litigation (PIL) petition highlighted that scamsters today were forging court orders, summons and arrest warrants to dupe people.The PIL was filed by two lawyers named Akshya and Urvashi Bhatia who had themselves been victims of the cyber-crimes where people posed as officers of the police, ED and CBI and tried to extort money from them.It was stated that the petitioners' cases were not unique and that it was now a common practice where fraudsters call people, send them text messages showing forged FIRs, orders and other documents and ask for money in return for relief..After considering the case, the Court also noted that the Delhi Police must have a unified system where people who have been victims of online fraud could lodge complaints even through WhatsApp, SMS, or e-mail.The Court said that the whole policing system needs to be reformed as there are new challenges coming up and fraudsters are coming up with ingenious new ways to cheat.The Court also highlighted that people today were not willing to file complaints because they have to hand over their phones and no one wants to do that.“You [Delhi Police] must have a centre where people can lodge complaints through WhatsApp, SMS or e-mail and on that basis the complaint gets registered. You have done it for missing children. A child goes missing and if a person filed a complaint through WhatsApp, the complaint is registered. You can do something like this in cases of these frauds also,” the Court remarked..The Court then asked the petitioners to make some changes to their prayer clause and listed the case for further hearing later this month.