Kolkata: Calcutta High Court has for the first time ordered a CBI probe into a digital arrest complaint, lodged by a retired Air Force officer who was allegedly duped of Rs 1.7 crore by men posing as Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) officials.The Aug 13 ruling, the first by the high court on “digital arrests” after Supreme Court issued detailed directives on Aug 4 to deal with such online fraud, cited “pan-India ramifications” of the case while assigning the probe to the central agency.The 73-year-old complainant, a New Town resident , alleged he had been kept under “digital arrest” for 10 days in Jan last year and forced to transfer his life savings of Rs 1,74,10,500 to the swindlers.Acting on his petition alleging that police had not done enough to crack the case, Justice Kausik Chanda ordered that the inquiry be handed to CBI. “Having regard to the pan-India ramifications of the case and in view of the SC judgment, the instant case ought to be transferred to CBI,” the judge ruled.The judge clarified that the order was not a reflection on the competence of Bidhannagar cyber crime police station, which was probing the case.In his complaint lodged on Jan 21 last year, the retired Air Force officer claimed that he had received a call from an unknown person on Jan 8. The caller had allegedly claimed to be a Trai official. He was told that his phone number would be blocked within two hours, before the call was transferred to a number that the caller claimed belonged to Andheri police station in Maharashtra.The caller told him that his mobile number was the same as that of a man in Andheri, who was facing arrest in a money laundering case. The complainant then received documents on WhatsApp that had stamps, resembling those of CBI and RBI.Threatened with action, the complainant panicked and transferred Rs 1.7 crore to the scammers, withdrawing the money in instalments from his fixed deposit and other bank accounts. He was finally let off on Jan 18.The complainant alleged in his petition that police did practically nothing after registering an FIR and sought transfer of the case to a central agency. Only one man was arrested, he said, despite the involvement of an organised racket. The accused is out on bail. An advocate, representing the state, however, submitted that police took all necessary steps to unearth the truth. Several bank accounts had been suspended, he said.SC had on Aug 4, building on its Dec 2025 order for a pan-India CBI probe into mule accounts, issued a 13-point guideline to combat “digital arrest” cyber scam, which included setting up of money restoration modules and operationalisation of state cyber crime centres.
