Cyber-Enabled Financial Fraud And Digital Arrest Scams: Gaps In BNS/IT Act Coordination
Abed Husen Sayyad, Symbiosis Law School, Pune, Symbiosis International (Deemed University)
ABSTRACT
The growing incidence of “digital arrest” and related types of cyber-enabled financial fraud have revealed a structural gap in India's post-2024 criminal law system: the “join” of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (“BNS”) and the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”). In this paper, the current state of that coexistence is analysed from the doctrinal and policy perspective. It charts the substantive provisions each statute brings to bear in the fight against impersonation-based cyber fraud, identifies institutional and procedural fault lines that can occur when general criminal law and special cyber legislation are brought to bear in the same first information report, and provides a framework for this analysis within the Supreme Court's current Suo motu case of In re Victims of Digital Arrest Related to Forged Documents. It alleges that the lack of a harmonising agenda among the BNS and the IT Act aggravated by inconsistent definitions of offences as cognizable or bailable, disjointed investigative powers, lack of a provision that enables sharing of real-time information from banks with telecom platforms and absence of a specific offence to tackle the use of impersonation of law-enforcement and judicial authorities for extortion has created an impromptu coordination gap that fraud syndicates, many of whom operate outside India's borders, are exploiting. The paper ends with a list of legislative and institutional recommendations such as a proposed harmonisation schedule, a specific offence for “impersonation of state authority for digital extortion” and statutory timelines for intermediary and telecom cooperation, as well as a victim compensation mechanism on the lines of existing financial-fraud compensation frameworks.
Keywords: Digital arrest scam, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Information Technology Act 2000, cyber fraud, BNS-IT Act coordination, cheating by personation, cybercrime jurisdiction, I4C
