More than 21,900 complaints of 'digital arrest' fraud involving ₹647 crore were registered between January and August 2026, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) have told the Supreme Court in their latest status report in the court's suo motu case on the scam, according to a summary of the report published on Friday, October 23.
Source: Inshorts (MHA/I4C status report summary)
The status report details steps taken by banks, telecom companies and investigating agencies, including the arrest of 49 people by the CBI in connection with digital-arrest cases, the summary said. It also says the grievance redressal portal mechanism now covers 109 banks and that ₹112.96 crore — yaani about ₹1.13 billion — has so far been restored to victims.
Complaints are falling, but the court wants monitoring to continue
The figures continue a decline the Supreme Court had already noted from earlier status reports: complaints on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal fell from 1,23,672 in 2024 to 58,249 in 2025 and 16,377 up to June 30, 2026, The Hindu BusinessLine reported from the court's earlier order on the fourth status report. In that order, the court recorded that the grievance redressal portal then covered 69 banks and a separate money-restoration portal had completed restoration in 36,290 cases involving ₹18.05 crore — the base from which the coverage and restoration figures in the latest report have grown.
The court had at the time directed the Reserve Bank of India to prepare a standard operating procedure for mule accounts linked to cyber fraud, asked states to operationalise their State Cyber Crime Coordination Centres and adopt the e-Zero FIR mechanism, and asked an inter-departmental committee to examine a shared-liability and victim-compensation framework, according to the BusinessLine and SCC Online reports of the order.
Hearing on October 27
The suo motu petition, titled 'In Re: Victims of Digital Arrest Related to Forged Documents', is scheduled to be heard on October 27 by a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, PTI reported. The court took up the case after a senior citizen couple from Ambala, Haryana, were allegedly defrauded of about ₹1.05 crore by fraudsters who showed them forged court and agency orders over video calls; the bench had observed that fabricating judicial orders strikes at the very foundation of public trust in the judicial system.
No police force, the CBI, the ED or any court in India arrests or interrogates anyone over a video call, and no official asks for money to settle a case. If such a call comes, disconnect and report it on the national cyber helpline 1930 or at cybercrime.gov.in — reporting quickly gives banks the best chance to freeze the money.