Latest news with #NCDRC
News18
17-07-2025
- News18
Digital Arrest Scam: Consumer Panel Issues Notices To Banks Over Service Deficiencies
Last Updated: Digital arrest scams target bank customers, causing financial losses. The NCDRC flagged service deficiencies in banks and may seek support from central agencies. Digital Arrest Scams: Digital arrest, a new modicum of cybercrime in the digital world, has become a new headache for banks. Several of their customers have reported losing a huge sum of money due to digital arrest scams across the country recently. Now, several banks have received notices from the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), which has flagged 'deficiencies in service" in cases involving victims of digital arrest fraud, according to a report of Indian Express. A digital arrest scam is a type of cyber fraud where scammers impersonate government or law enforcement officials and threaten the victim with fake criminal charges—like money laundering, illegal transactions, or drug trafficking—to extort hold victims digitally hostage for hours or even days, making them part with personal/financial information and money. A few victims of digital arrests have filed petitions that were admitted in an order dated March 3 and on July 07. The NCDRC bench stated that if it finds the complaints to be 'maintainable," it may consider seeking support from central agencies such as the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Home Ministry, The Indian Express report stated. While speaking to The Indian Express, Mahindra Limaye, the lawyer for all three victims, said a victim from Mumbai had suffered the digital arrest scam last year and on that lost a sum of Rs 5.88 crore. The Call or Message: You receive a call, WhatsApp message, or video call from someone pretending to be a police officer, government official, CBI officer, or even an RBI official. Sometimes, they even show fake ID cards or use edited videos to look official. Scare Tactics: They claim that a parcel, Aadhaar, PAN, or bank account in your name is linked to illegal activity (like drugs or money laundering). They may say: 'Your ID was used in a crime." 'A case has been registered against you." 'You will be arrested unless you cooperate." Digital Arrest: Victims are asked to stay on a video call constantly — they're told not to contact anyone and are 'digitally arrested." The scammer acts like they're monitoring the victim as if under official custody. Extortion Begins: The scammer demands money to 'clear" your name, 'verify" your identity, or 'settle the case." Victims are forced to transfer large sums under pressure, often through UPI, crypto, or gift cards. Emotional Manipulation: They use fear, shame, and urgency to trap the victim. Some victims have stayed on video calls for hours or even days in panic. view comments First Published: July 14, 2025, 08:46 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Indian Express
13-07-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Digital arrest scam: Consumer panel sends notices to banks, flags service ‘deficiencies'
Digital arrests have reached the doorstep of the national consumer commission. For the first time, a clutch of banks have received notices from the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission which has flagged that victims of digital arrest fraud have been subjected to 'deficiencies in service.' The petitions filed by digital arrest victims were admitted in an order dated March 3 and on July 7. The banks' replies were heard by the NCDRC bench that included the commission's President, Justice (retired) AP Sahi, and member Bharatkumar Pandya. The NCDRC bench has said that it would consider seeking assistance of Central Government agencies like the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Home Ministry's Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) should it be decided that the complaints were 'maintainable' before the commission. The petitions of two Gurugram victims — who had lost Rs 10.30 crore and Rs 5.85 crore — in digital arrest scams last year were clubbed together for the NCDRC case; a third case from Mumbai will also be heard at the next hearing, fixed for November 14. Mahendra Limaye, the lawyer for all the three victims, said the Mumbai victim had lost a sum of Rs 5.88 crore after facing digital arrest last year. Limaye told The Indian Express, 'What is significant is that the Consumer Commission bench has sent notices to all banks in the chain of the digital arrest cases, including the beneficiary banks. The allegations of violation of guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the deficiency of services will now be heard in detail by the Commission which is a first for the banking sector…' The orders make clear that the issue of whether digital arrest pleas fall within the definition of a 'consumer complaint'' and what would be the 'pecuniary jurisdiction' for entertaining such complaints are the two issues which will be heard. In its March 3 order, the NCDRC bench has stated that the allegations they were examining was how 'customer diligence was clearly compromised' and that 'RBI guidelines were blatantly violated and no customer protection care was taken.' The order added: 'The guidelines for checking unauthorized electronic banking transactions are governed by circulars and it appears that the accounts in which the amounts have been transferred by the complainants, those accounts were maintained seemingly without taking any precautions and no alerts or red flags were raised by any of the Banks in the background that the transactions were all suspicious for huge amounts…' Among the banks which have been sent notices and several of which were represented during the July 7 hearing are: ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, UCO Bank, Federal Bank, Sreenivasa Padmavathi Bank, Yes Bank, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank. As reported in an investigative series in The Indian Express in June and July, the number of digital arrest frauds in India had jumped up to 1,23,672 cases in 2024 with an amount of Rs 1,935 crore being swindled from the victims. The case of one of the Gurugram victims — who is now before the NCDRC and had lost Rs 5.85 crore — was investigated to show how from her bank account, the money was moved by fraudsters to 141 accounts located all over the country in three layers of transactions. The amounts were withdrawn sometimes within seconds and minutes of being deposited from one bank to another. The fact that a single fictitious or mule account was used for multiple cyber frauds was also highlighted. Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India's most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ's Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More
Time of India
23-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
‘Interest on refund is like compensation in consumer disputes'
New Delhi: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), while holding builders liable for deficiency in service, observed that in consumer cases, awarding interest along with a refund serves as a form of compensation. The commission's bench of Justice Sudip Ahluwalia and Sadhna Shanker was hearing an appeal filed by a builder against the orders of a state commission. The state commission had found the builder's service deficient and directed a refund of Rs 34,27,747 with 12% interest, Rs 1 lakh as compensation, and Rs 11,000 as litigation costs to the complainant. On June 16, NCDRC modified the state commission's order based on legal precedents. It set aside the Rs 1 lakh compensation but increased the litigation costs from Rs 11,000 to Rs 40,000. In 2011, the complainants booked a flat in a project by Barnala Builders on the Chandigarh-Ambala Highway after seeing advertisements that claimed it was fully developed and clear of legal issues. They paid a large portion of the price, but the builder did not provide the buyer's agreement at first. Later, the builder gave them an agreement with many unexpected and unfair terms. The complainants also received several arbitrary service tax demands without a proper explanation. Despite paying over Rs 34 lakh, they were only given a paper possession letter, while actual development, utility connections, and statutory certificates were still missing. They asked for a refund, but the builder only threatened forfeiture. They filed a complaint before the state commission of Punjab in 2014. The commission in 2016 held that the builder had been deficient in service and ordered a refund of Rs 34,27,747 with 12% interest, Rs 1 lakh compensation, and Rs 11,000 as litigation costs. Aggrieved, the builder filed an appeal before the National Commission. The national commission reaffirmed that in consumer cases, giving interest and a refund is a kind of compensation.
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Business Standard
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Builder liable for giving possession without occupancy certificate: NCDRC
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has held Faridabad-based Hamilton Heights liable for deficiency in service and unfair trade practice for handing over possession of a flat without securing the occupancy certificate (OC). The case underscores the need for buyers to ensure the OC is obtained before taking possession. What is an occupancy certificate? An occupancy certificate (OC), issued by the planning authority, confirms that a building complies with approved plans. In Gurugram, for instance, it is issued by the Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) or the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram. 'For homebuyers, it serves as proof that
The Print
28-04-2025
- Business
- The Print
Jailed IAS Hans took Rs 1 cr to settle consumer case when he was pvt secy to Ram Vilas—ED charge sheet
The NCDRC functions under the Department of Consumer Affairs of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. Paswan was holding the portfolio in the first Modi government between 2014 and 2019. The agency has alleged Hans used his influence as Paswan's PS to help the promoters of the Mumbai-based real estate firm RNA Group as part of a deal facilitated by his IIT friend Vipul Bansal, who was an employee of the company. New Delhi: Jailed IAS officer Sanjeev Hans, once a top civil servant in Bihar, collected Rs 1 crore bribe from a Mumbai-based realty firm to secure a favourable settlement from the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) when he was private secretary to then nodal minister late Ram Vilas Paswan, the Enforcement Directorate has alleged in a prosecution complaint. Hans, an IAS officer of the 1997 batch from the Bihar cadre, was appointed Paswan's PS on 3 July 2014 and he remained in the post till 30 May 2019. A prosecution complaint is a charge sheet filed against accused arrested by the ED under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The agency had filed the prosecution complaint against Hans, his batchmate Bansal, business partner and former RJD MLA Ghulab Yadav and other aides of Hans in December 2014. A special PMLA court in Patna took cognisance of the prosecution complaint last month. Hans was arrested in October last year on the charges of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and allegedly recouping kickbacks from the companies favoured in contracts through his friends and batchmates. ThePrint reported in December that the ED estimated Hans had amassed assets around Rs 100 crore, including around Rs 60 crore from an electrical infrastructure firm, which inked a Rs 3,300-crore contract with the Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited when he was heading the state-owned firm between July 2020 to August 2024. Advocate Changez Khan, partner at Diwan Associates, the law firm representing Hans in court, called the ED's investigation 'a web of falsehood riddled with ulterior motives, woven from a frivolous and fabricated complaint'. 'It appears that the Directorate of Enforcement, fully aware that it lacks any substantive case against Mr Hans, is instead resorting to creating a false narrative in an attempt to malign his character and reputation. Despite these malicious efforts, Mr Hans, a law-abiding citizen, continues to place his unwavering faith in the justice delivery system of our country. He remains confident that the truth will prevail and is optimistic that he will soon be exonerated of all false allegations,' Khan said in a statement to ThePrint. 'Modus operandi' Nearly a month after recording an ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report), the ED arrested Hans on 18 October last year and filed a prosecution complaint on 16 December. The complaint, a copy of which ThePrint has now seen, describes in detail the modus operandi allegedly devised by Hans to acquire bribes and immovable assets and their recoupment through his aides and business partners such as Ghulab Yadav. In an allegation specific to the RNA Group's case before the NCDRC, the probe agency has relied on the statement of Bansal, Hans's batchmate from IIT-Delhi and the alleged middleman between the officer and the promoters of the firm. According to the complaint, RNA Corp faced several financial challenges such as halted projects and missed repayment of bank loans following the death of the chairman Anil Agarwal. As the situation worsened, customers stopped paying their pending payments leading to defaults on the bank loans. The firm's efforts to raise funds from various real estate groups to settle bank loans also remained unsuccessful, Bansal allegedly revealed to the ED in a statement under section 50 of the PMLA. The problem compounded when a case was filed against the firm around 2018 in the NCDRC, and Saranga Agarwal, the wife of chairman, was summoned for non-compliance with the bench's orders. Bansal, who was on the payroll of the firm, allegedly facilitated a meeting between Hans and Anubhav Agarwal, the promoter of the firm to negotiate a favourable outcome and prevent his mother's arrest, according to the ED charge sheet. Bansal further allegedly revealed that Hans arranged two separate dates from the NCDRC bench for RNA Corp for compliance of the bench's order and cancellation of Saranga Agarwal's arrest. 'Therefore, for arranging two dates and non-arrest of Saranga Agarwal, the total amount of nearly Rs. 1 crore had been paid to Sanjeev Hans,' Bansal was quoted as having said in his statement mentioned in the prosecution complaint. The alleged bribe, the agency claimed, was paid through one acquaintance of Hans, named Shadad Khan, whose number was provided by Hans himself to Bansal, who further passed on to Agarwal for payment. Hans has been suspended and he is currently under judicial custody in Patna's Beur jail while Bansal is out on bail on medical grounds. The ED has so far arrested 13 accused and filed three prosecution complaints against 33 total accused. (Edited by Ajeet Tiwari) Also read: Arrested Bihar IAS Sanjeev Hans 'accumulated Rs 100 cr assets, took bribe for contract'—ED chargesheet
