Supreme Court weighs safeguards against digital-arrest scams

The Supreme Court said it would examine proposed Reserve Bank of India safeguards against digital-arrest scams and called for financial institutions to compensate victims when fraud resulted from failures of due diligence. The court’s comments came during a hearing on October 29, as Chief Justice Surya Kant questioned why people continued to comply with scammers despite repeated warnings and judicial intervention. The court is considering whether banks should be required to identify unusual transactions and temporarily suspend them before money is transferred. It said it wanted to examine the RBI’s proposed KYC Amendment Directions, 2026. The Attorney General, R. Venkataramani, told the court the directions were expected to be notified by November 30 and operationalised by December 31. The Supreme Court is scheduled to take up the case again before November 30. The Attorney General told the court that net losses from digital-arrest scams exceeded ₹800 crore. That figure was presented during the hearing and was not accompanied in the reporting by an independently established accounting basis. The Hindu also reported the Chief Justice referring to the amount. The court’s focus...