Be cautious. If a mobile SIM card registered in your name is being used by someone else, you could face a fine of up to ₹50 lakh and a prison sentence of three years.
In a recent strict directive, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has warned citizens across the country regarding SIM card irregularities and misuse. If a person commits cyber fraud or anti-social activities using a SIM card obtained through your identity documents, the police will take equal legal action against the original owner of the documents.
Strict measures have been implemented, including up to three years of imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹50 lakh for buying or selling SIM cards with fake identities or changing a mobile’s IMEI number.
The DoT issued this strict directive following a massive fraud detected in Chhattisgarh. There, a SIM selling agent misused customers’ documents to activate 25 fake SIMs without their knowledge. As soon as the incident came to light, the government banned the agent and disconnected all connections that failed re-verification.
According to the department, taking a SIM in one’s name and selling it, renting it out, or giving it to others for use is a serious offence. Often, fraudsters collect such SIMs using others’ documents to commit cybercrimes, known in forensic terms as ‘Mule SIMs.’ Regardless of who commits the crime, the original owner will be the first to be caught by the police based on the documents during the investigation.
According to the law, a regular citizen can have a maximum of 9 SIMs in their name, but for citizens of the Northeast (including Assam) and Jammu & Kashmir, this limit is set at a maximum of 6 SIMs. To prevent exceeding this limit, a new system has already been started on the Digital Intelligence Platform, through which photos of people having more than the prescribed limit of SIMs will be published on the portal. The government has set a deadline of November 30 for all telecom companies to fully integrate this new security system.
Meanwhile, the DoT has urged citizens to monitor whether any fake SIM is active in their name without their knowledge.
For this, by logging into the ‘Know Your Mobile Connections’ option on the government portal with one’s number and OTP, all active numbers in one’s name can be viewed. If any unidentified or unused number appears there, filing a complaint immediately under the ‘Not My Number’ option will initiate government-level action to block that fake number.
