Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has flagged the scale of money laundering and fraudulent schemes like digital arrest even as he called for a proactive response from the Indian Judiciary.

Speaking of money laundering at a global scale, Surya Kant said the world launders have enough money to buy a laptop for every one of the eight billion people on the planet.

The Chief Justice was speaking at closing address at the 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime in London on Saturday. He said the Indian judiciary has proactively responded to emerging fraudulent schemes such as digital arrest scams rather than waiting for Parliament to address them, news agency PTI reported.

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Referring to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the CJI said the law runs alongside criminal proceedings and that the Indian justice delivery system has increasingly allowed civil recovery even when criminal trials drag on.

“And finally, like every nation represented in this hall, India has learned through hard experience that Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties with other countries, however imperfect their machinery and modalities, bring a recovered asset home far more reliably than extradition ever does. Illicit wealth, after all, rarely stays where it was stolen,” the news agency quoted him as saying.

He, however, highlighted that of the Rs 100 laundered, authorities are only able to recover Rs 1.

“And of that immense tide of illicit wealth, by the most generous reckoning, less than one unit in a hundred is ever recovered,” he reportedly said.

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He added if global estimates on money laundering were true, the world launders enough money in a single year to buy every one of the eight billion people a modest laptop and still have some change left over.

Chief Justice on ‘digital arrest’ scam

CJI Surya Kant also flagged the rising menace of ‘digital arrest’ scam and said the government has been directed to evaluate extent of the problem. In the ‘digital arrest’ scam, fraudsters impersonate police officers, judicial officials, or bureaucrats over video calls to dupe citizens of their hard-earned savings.

“In response, the court has directed the Union and the states to evaluate the extent of this problem and has called for the establishment of a distinct offence, with penalties proportionate to the harm inflicted,” Surya Kant said.

“This exemplifies a broader pattern: an Indian Judiciary that proactively responds to emerging fraudulent schemes, rather than waiting for Parliament to address them,” he added.

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He said India’s modern response to economic crime can be best understood as a layered architecture, built deliberately over successive decades, in which legislation, institutions and judicial doctrine are each made to do distinct work.