Mumbai: Claiming that every citizen is prone to be a victim of online fraud, three persons running a firm, who have been defrauded of over Rs 1.80 crore, have approached the Bombay High Court highlighting the rise in online fraud cases. The plea that further claims that the local police stations usually shun the victims of such offences, seeks constitution of a dedicated committee to look into such cyber crimes.
The petition has been filed by Vimal, Amit and Dhaval Shah, all running a firm at Mahim. The petitioners claim to have been looted of more than Rs 1.8 crore in an overnight online theft. This theft, according to the petitioners was carried out from various locations including United Kingdom after their SIM cards were blocked. They have claimed that their money has been siphoned to several accounts in different banks, across India.
In their plea through advocate Pankaj Bafna, the petitioners have also claimed that initially they approached a local police station in Mahim to report their case, however, they were asked to go to some other station and finally after running from pillar to post, they got an FIR registered in the Cyber Crime Cell at BKC. The petitioners have in their petition highlighted how such online fraud cases have increased, especially by using a similar modus operandi.
“There have been news items time-to-time, from which it becomes evident that whenever credit card / online banking frauds have taken place, the victim’s mobile SIM card has been either deactivated or closed and usually such fraudulent online banking transaction / credit card transaction have taken place in the dead of the night,” the plea reads.
It is learnt that even Mumbai Police had fallen prey to cyber crime and the police officers lost their salary. Even the chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) was not safe and his bank account was also hacked. There is also an incident where Justice (retd.) Madan Lokur’s email account was also not spared by cyber criminals. Thus, even Judges too can be victims of cybercrime,” the plea claims.
The petition further sheds light on absence of any policy or mechanism to trace and recover the siphoned money. “The concerned authorities may be directed to formulate such policy and issue guidelines as may be necessary to prevent online banking transaction frauds by providing enough time frame to the victim like Petitioners to approach the police authorities and banks to report the offence.
The authorities further be ordered to provide Uniform Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be implemented for safeguarding citizens from falling prey to cybercrime,” the petition reads. Accordingly, the petitioners have sought a series of directions, especially, constitution of a High Power Committee to look into online banking / credit card cyber crime complaints.
Highlighting the apathy of the police, the plea states, “We have first hand experience, when victims of such online banking fraud approach local police stations to lodge their case, most often they are directed to the cyber police station branch where the complaint is lodged. Such refusal to register their complaint by often result to grave hardship to the victims and delay in lodging the FIR.”
“Thus, the police authorities may be directed to issue necessary orders to all the police stations to receive and investigate fraudulent online banking / credit card transaction complaint and not to insist victims to approach designated cyber crime police stations,” the petition reads further. The matter is likely to be heard on March 14 by a bench as per the new assignment.
