The have initiated a formal criminal investigation into the emergence of a sophisticated involving a fabricated order, which was subsequently used to secure the administrative blocking of 95 websites. The FIR, registered on , marks a significant escalation in efforts to curb the misuse of for the unauthorized removal of digital content across the internet.
The criminal case was precipitated by a directive from the Chief Justice of the , who ordered a police probe after an internal confirmed the falsity of the document. The fraudulent order, purportedly passed on , bore the name of Justice Garima Prashad and was presented to the (DoT) by an individual claiming to be a senior advocate. Acting on this document, the DoT issued a directive on , instructing to restrict access to 95 distinct web domains, many of which were alleged to be hosting unauthorized streams of Indian Premier League matches and illicit betting platforms.
Detection Through Editorial Scrutiny
The deception was exposed not through conventional , but through the of a technology reporter. On , Munsif Vengattil, a reporter for an international news agency, contacted the ’s to verify the authenticity of a blocking order he had encountered while reviewing the ’ public records.
The registrar’s subsequent internal investigation revealed a complete absence of the order in the Court’s official records. Furthermore, the case number cited in the purported document—Writ-A No. 30480 of 2026, styled as —did not exist. The private secretary to Justice Garima Prashad confirmed that no such proceedings had ever taken place under her jurisdiction. The inquiry further discovered that the document’s inclusion of an official court seal and a QR code—features intended to facilitate digital verification—was part of a deliberate effort to mimic legitimate court records. When scanned, the QR code redirected users not to an authenticated database of High Court orders, but to an obscure, ad-hoc webpage specifically designed to validate the existence of the non-existent case number.
Legal Provisions and Regulatory Exposure
The FIR has been filed under several sections of the (BNS), including Sections 318(2) (cheating), 336(2), 336(3), 337, 338, and 340(2), which pertain to , the of court records and public registers, and the fraudulent use of documents as genuine. The complaint submitted by the Joint Registrar of the High Court explicitly highlights the severity of the act, noting that “unknown persons have committed the offence of with the intention of cheating, and used the as genuine.”
This development exposes systemic vulnerabilities within the current administrative framework for website takedowns. Because government departments frequently act on directives based on submitted court orders, the reliance on paper-based or unverified digital submissions creates an environment where malicious actors can exploit the speed of executive action. By bypassing the requirement for direct authentication with the court registry, these actors successfully weaponized the to enforce their own private interests under the guise of judicial compliance.
A Growing Trend of Judicial Impersonation
The incident in Allahabad is not an isolated occurrence. Investigation has revealed a striking parallel in the , where a similar fraudulent order was utilized earlier in the year. In that instance, a document purportedly issued by Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand led to the blocking of 34 additional websites, including various betting platforms. The registry has since confirmed that the document, sent to the government by an individual claiming to be an Advocate-on-Record, was entirely fraudulent and absent from the court’s server. Consequently, the two fabricated orders combined resulted in the forced shutdown of at least 129 websites.
The broader implications of these events have drawn concern regarding the security of digital legal communication. Recently, in a separate but related matter before the , counsel for (formerly Twitter) informed Justice Amit Mahajan that several takedown notices previously attributed to the Delhi Police were, in fact, sent by an imposter. Those notices had targeted accounts associated with the and the . The discovery led to the disposal of those petitions, but the episode serves as another indicator of the rising frequency with which is being hijacked to silence or remove digital entities.
Immediate Procedural Trajectory
As of , the investigation into the remains in its early stages. No suspects have been formally identified, and authorities are currently analyzing the communication channels through which the forged order was transmitted to the . The High Court’s decision to pursue criminal charges demonstrates a firm stance against the erosion of institutional integrity. For the government, the challenge now shifts to implementing more robust verification protocols that require direct, real-time validation of all court-issued directives before they are relayed to service providers for execution. The investigation continues as a test of the state’s ability to secure the intersection of digital governance and the .
court order verification - digital forgery - judicial record tampering - website blocking directives - telecommunications regulatory oversight
