Delhi High Court: Prathiba M. Singh, J., directed Indian Banks Association (‘IBA’) to hold meeting of the concerned sub-groups and sub-committees to ensure that all Banks follow the Standard Operating Procedures (‘SOP’) in respect of information disclosure mechanism to the law enforcement agencies.
In the present case, the domain names were being registered by unknown third parties infringing trade mark rights of various brand owners and implementation of Court orders by the Domain Name Registrars (‘DNRs’). Further, for the purpose of disclosure of information to law enforcement agencies and for better coordination between the Cyber Cell of Police Authorities and the Bank Authorities, it was directed by this Court that meeting should be held between the concerned Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs. The Court noted that pursuant to this meeting, the following developments had taken place:
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A high-level meeting on prevention of cybercrimes was called by the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’) along with some senior officials belonging to the Ministry of Home Affairs including I4C (Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre) and Director General of Police of some States. In the said meeting, the law enforcement agencies had clearly expressed that Banks ought to expedite the process of providing information. Accordingly, IBA and RBI took cognizance of the entire issue.
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An affidavit was filed by RBI in which detailed SOP were prepared for exchange of information between Banks and law enforcement agencies. The said SOP was circulated to all the Banks including the law enforcement agencies such as Police, Economic Intelligence Council Convener, National Investigation Agency, Central Bureau of Investigation, Central Board of Direct Taxation, Directorate of Enforcement, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau, FIU-IND, etc.
The Court noted that the IBA had asked for the constitution of a sub-group and two executives should be nominated by each of the Banks, which the HDFC Bank had already done, and the State Bank of India (‘SBI’) had also nominated concerned officials for the said sub-group. However, information sought from SBI was not provided to the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police even as of January 2024.
The Court opined that the SOP and the way SOPs must be implemented by all the Banks was still a work in progress. Thus, the Court directed IBA to hold meeting of the concerned sub-groups and sub-committees to ensure that all Banks follow the SOP in respect of information disclosure mechanism to the law enforcement agencies. The Court further directed that a notice should be issued to Srinivasarao, Senior Advisor, IBA to appear before this Court so that the stand of all the Banks could be considered.
The Court noted that as per the status report filed by the Delhi Police, the law enforcement agencies had sent notices to various DNRs and Banks seeking information regarding specific IP addresses and details pertaining to the UPI Id’s, respectively. The Court thus stated that the DNRs and the Banks, in compliance with the notices, should provide the requisite information sent to the Delhi Police, expeditiously, failing which, stringent action would be taken.
The matter would next be listed on 06-04-2024.
[Dabur India Ltd. v. Ashok Kumar, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 759, Order dated 01-02-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Plaintiffs: Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, Sandeep Kumar Mahapatra, CGSC; Anirudh Bakhru, Ankur Chibber, Prabhu Tandon, Kripa Pandit, Sazid Rayeen, Tanmaya Mehta, Rashmi Gogoi, Riya Rathi, Abhishek Singh, J. Amal Anand, Elvin Joshy, Vikram Singh Dalal, Shashwat Tyagi, Alisha Sharma, Tanya Varma, Devyani Nath, Sidharth Chopra, Nitin Sharma, Yatin Garg, Ranjeet Singh, Vivek Ayyagari, Angad Makkar, M. J. Sudarshan, Ramya Aggarwal, Sohrab Mann, Raunaq Kamath, Sauhard Alung, Pravin Anand, Saif Khan, Rohil Bansal, Shobhit Agarwal, Deepank, Kushal Gupta, Mohd Umar, Devesh Ratan, Manish Biala, Vaishali Mittal, Shivang Sharma, Siddhant Chamola, Shantanu Sahay, Imon Roy, Apoorv Bansal, Vibhav Mithal, Achyut Tiwari, Achuthan Sreekumar, Prachi Agarwal, Ridhie Bajaj, Yashika Kapoor, Parshant Arora, Sagar Chandra, Shubhie Wahi, Ankita Seth, Sanya Kapoor, Kapil Wadhwa, Vasanthi Hariharan, Nikhil Sonker, Sudarshan Kumar Bansal, Arpit Dudeja, Dushyant Mahant, Urfee Roomi, Ayush Dixit, Rima Majumdar, Aditya Vats, Shilpi Sinha, Mrinal Ojha, Debarshi Dutta, Anand Raja, Tanta Chaudhry, Shivam Tiwari, Samyak Bilala, Meenakshi Ogra, Tarun Khurana, Rishi Vohra, Chhavi Panday, Srish Kumar Mishra, Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Krishnan V., Raunaq Kamath, Sauhard Alung, Rajesh Kumar Gautam, Anant Gautam, R P Daida, Dinesh Sharma, Anani Achumi, Shivani Sagar, Yashu Rustagi, Kumar Vishwjeet, Tribhuvan, Ramesh Kumar Mahaliyan, Alipak Banerjee, Shweta Sahu, Parva Khare, Brijesh Ujjainwal, Sourabh Rath, Vibhore Yadav, Peeyoosh Kalra, C.A. Brijesh, Krisna Gambhir, Simranjot Kaur, Ishith Arora, Rima Majumdar, Shilpi Sinha, Aaditya Vats, Anirudh Bakhru, Neeharika Chauhan, Naqeeb Nawab, Sejal Tayal, Pragya Choudhary, Advocates
For the Defendants: Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, Anil Soni, Anurag Ahluwalia, Manish Mohan, Bhagwan Swarup Shukla, Sandeep Kumar Mahapatra, Apoorv Kurup, Vineet Dhanda, Nidhi Raman, CGSC; Hetu Arora Sethi, Nandita Rao, ASC; Dayan Krishnan, Darpan Wadhwa, Rajshekhar Rao, Senior Advocates; Abhigyan Siddhant, G.P.; Yashvardhan Singh, Srish Kumar Mishra, Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Krishnan V., Kruttika Vijay, Aishwarya Kane, Alipak Banerjee, Parva Khare, Brijesh Ujjainwal, K.G. Gopalakrishnan, Nisha Mohandas, Shweta Sahu, Apoorv Kurup, Kirti Dadheech, Akshay Goel, Shivam Narang, Lalit Kashyap, Shubhendu Anand, Piyush M. Dwivedi, Kushal Gupta, Mohd Umar, Prashant Prakash, Lakahmi Kruttika Vijay, Sarfaraz Khan, Abdul Wahid, Moazzam Khan, Akshita Jain, Sanjay Gupta, Amol Sharma, Rahul Mourya, Devvrat Yadav, Danish Faraz Khan, Neel Mason, Vihan Dang, Aditi Umapathy, Aishwarya Jain, Praveen Kumar Jain, Shalini Jha, Ramesh Babu, Manisha Singh, Jagriti Bharti, Tanya Chowdhary, Ekta Choudhary, Anisha, Divyank Dutt Dwivedi, Vihan Dang, Parva Khare, Pallavi Singh Rai, Shubhaankar Ray, Shatrajit Banerji, Aditya Gupta, Aishwarya, Sauhard Alung, Asvari Jain, Manish Paliwal, Himanshi Kaushik, Tine Abraham, Shivani Rawat, Mohanakrishna C., Abhi Udai Singh, Harshil Wason, Ashok Kumar, Chhavi Arora, Swati Aggarwal, Binsy Susan, Aasish Samasi, Mohit Singh, Neel Mason, Abhigyan Siddhant, K.R. Sasiprabhu, Tushar Bhardwaj, Anuj Srivastava, Piyush Singhal, Paras Khurana, Himanshi Jain, Yashu Rustagi, Richa Kapoor, Kunal Anand, Shisham Pradhan, Deepak Singh, Sonia Munjal, Mrinal Ojha, Debarshi Dutta, Anand Raja, Tanta Chaudhry, Shivam Tiwari, Samyak Bilala, Yashika Kapoor, Parshant Arora, Ritika Bansal, Vaarish Sawlani, Tanmay Nirmal, Kushagra Goel, Lovesh Goel, Tanya Singhal, Ravi Shankar Mahto, Binsy Susan, Ananta Prasad Mishra, Gagan Gupta, Rajiv Ranjan Dwivedi, Vishal, Yajur Bhalla, Deepak Samota, Sumer Ahuja, Asiya Khan, Ritu Mishra, Hrithik Goyal, Lovleen Goyal, L R Goyal, Deepika Kathuria, Asmita Kumar, Rajiv Kapur, Akshit Kapur, Aditya Saxena, Sumit Nagpal, Dolly Luthra, Aashta Sood, Vivek Jain, Aastha Tiwari, Rajiv Kumar Malik, Megha, Deepanshu Nainwa, M.K. Singh, Samir Chugh, Anvita Goel, Prince Kumar, Amrit Bhatia, Tushar Singh, Trisha Patnaik, Surinder Singh, Mayank Mehandra, Charu Tandon, Sarthak Kapoor, Raghav Tandon, Ramnish Khanna, Neel Mason, Uday Singh Chopra, Saransh Saini, Ujjawal Bhargava, Rishi Kapoor, Yashika Kapoor, Meenakshi Dutta, Anupam Kumar Mishra, Gautam Harshwal, Ankit Rastogi, Saransh Saini, Saransh, Anupam Kumar Mishra, Keya Rawat, P.S. Sudheer, Anne Mathew, Shubhendu Anand, Akshat Kaushik, Piyush M. Dwivedi, Rohit Rattu, V. K Gupta, Sh. Sunil Shukla, Kaushiki Kashyap, Rajesh Kumar Gautam, Anant Gautam, R P Daida, Dinesh Sharma, Anani Achumi, Shivani Sagar, V. K Gupta, Sunil Shukla, Kaushiki Kashyap, Ankur Prakash, Simran Gill, Yudhishthir Bhardwaj, Dhananjay, Amod Bidhuri, Saquib Siddiqui, Akshit Chaudhary, Ramnish Khanna, Kamaldeep, K.K. Singh, K.R. Sasiprabhu, Tushar Bhardwaj, Rishabh Gupta, Abhishek Kumar Singh, Lakshy Aggarwal, Rishi Kapoor, Satish Rai, Sudarshan Kumar Bansal, Nikhil Sonker, Nidhi Mittal, Muskaan Gupta, Naveen Kumar Jain, Firoz Iqbal Khan, Mohd Shad, Shashi Shekhar Dixit, Kirti Bhardwaj, Santosh Kr. Rout, Dharna Veragi, Pawan Kumar, Abhishek Chakraborty, Varun Pathak, Amee Rana, Vishesh Sharma, Shashi Shekhar Dixit, Rahul Chauhan, Aishwarya Mishra, Asiya Khan, Chandrashekhar Chakalabbi, Aishwarya Hiremath, Varnik Kundaliya, G. Mirza, Vishesh Sharma, Rishab Raj Jain, Sharique Hussain, Sohit Choudhary, Prashant Prakash, Yukti Gupta, Aayush Kevlani, Srish Kumar Mishra, Sagar Mehlawat Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Amit Mahaliyan, Tine Abraham, Shivani Rawat, Mohanakrishna C., Abhi Udai Singh, Harshil Wason, Varun Pathak, Shyamal Anand, Thejesh Rajendran, Tejpal Singh Rathore, Susmit Pushkar, Anchit Oswal, Gaurav Sharma, Naina Agarwal, Ramesh Babu, Manisha Singh, Jagriti Bharti, Shikha Sarin, Paras Malhotra, Jaydip Pati, Tushar Bagga, Rajat Katyal, Harsh Sinha, Sachin Dubey, Debarchan De, Advocates
