Digital arrest scams expose the gap between India's digital-payments expansion and its cyber-policing capacity. Examine the role of I4C and suggest reforms for Centre–State coordination.

A "digital arrest" is a scam in which fraudsters pose as police or CBI officers on video calls and extort money under a fake threat of arrest. No such procedure exists in Indian law [4]. NCRP logged 1,23,672 such complaints in 2024 [1]. Payments now move nationwide in seconds, but policing still stops at State borders.

Role of I4C

• Nodal coordinator: I4C is an attached office of MHA. It was set up to tackle all cybercrime in a coordinated way [3].
• Single reporting window: the NCRP (cybercrime.gov.in, 2019) sends complaints to State/UT police, who register FIRs [2].
• Freezing stolen money: CFCFRMS (2021) and Helpline 1930 let banks block stolen money quickly. Over ₹5,489 crore has been saved across 17.82 lakh+ complaints [5].
• Disruption and awareness: it blocked 3,962+ Skype IDs and 83,668 WhatsApp accounts and ran caller-tune campaigns [4]. Complaints fell to 58,249 in 2025 [1].

Gaps in capacity

• It coordinates but cannot command: police is a State subject (Seventh Schedule), so investigation stays with the States [2].
• Uneven rollout: e-Zero FIR works in only 19 States. Only 14 States have notified State Cyber Crime Coordination Centres [1].
• Money blocked is not money returned: the Supreme Court had to order SOPs and time-bound refunds [1].
• Cross-border networks are beyond the reach of any single State police force.

Reforms for Centre–State coordination

• Minimum standard for every State: each State should notify a coordination centre and run e-Zero FIR. Central police-modernisation grants could be tied to this.
• Joint task forces: inter-State teams led by I4C, with fixed protocols for handing over cases.
• Shared dashboard: publish FIRs, chargesheets and convictions State by State, and show money lost next to money saved.
• Refund first: banks pay victims within a fixed time, as the Court directed [1], and then recover from frozen accounts.
• Capacity: cyber-forensic labs and trained cyber cells at district level.
• Platform duty: messaging platforms should flag accounts posing as officials before the calls are made.

I4C has built the national system for reporting fraud and freezing money; the States now need to connect to it fully. Cooperative federalism in cyber-policing, monitored by the Supreme Court, can match policing capacity to the scale of Digital India. It would also advance SDG 16 (strong institutions) and protect citizens' trust in digital payments.