New Delhi: Telecom operators will now start using a photograph of subscribers, who have hit the ceiling on mobile connections in their name, to stop them from buying any more SIM cards. Weeks after the government had described the idea to the Supreme Court as still under study, it has turned into a firm rule, with the issuance of the instruction by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on 17 August.
An individual can hold up to nine mobile connections across all operators and all circles, and up to six in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the North-East. Anyone above the limit has to give up the extra ones. If they do not, the circular says, the “numbers acquired at the later date will be disconnected” first.
The DoT will put a photo of each subscriber, who has reached the limit, on its Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP)—the system that tracks how many connections a person holds across companies and circles. Under the circular, “a representative image of the photo of each such subscriber who has already touched the prescribed limit for mobile connections in his name would be made available on DIP” from 23 August. Operators have been told to “download all such images on daily basis so that such subscribers could be prevented from crossing the prescribed limit”.
From 24 August, telecom service providers (TSPs) are to match applicants against those images. When someone who has reached the cap tries for a fresh connection, the operator must tell him “that he already has maximum number of mobile connections permitted to an individual and accordingly, a new mobile connection cannot be provided to him”.
In the first phase, the check may run a day after enrolment, in a catch-up mode. Companies have to build it into the sign-up process and run it in real time by 30 November. Till then, the circular says, “any mobile connection activated beyond the prescribed limit for a day shall be immediately suspended till resolution of the issue”.
A proposal set to become a rule
The rule closes a loop that runs back to the Supreme Court. The apex court has been hearing a case on digital arrest fraud on its own motion since October last year, after an elderly couple said they had lost their savings to such a scam.
In the fourth status report in that case, filed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on 3 August, the DoT told an Inter-Departmental Committee it would examine a pilot for cross-operator visibility to catch SIMs issued beyond the permitted threshold. The 17 August instruction is that pilot, now dated and mandatory.
The report listed other telecom-side steps around it. They include keeping point-of-sale and SIM supply-chain data on the DIP traceable for investigators, SIM-binding by messaging apps so that access is tied to the SIM in the device, finishing all subscriber verification within two months, and blocking international calls that fake Indian caller IDs.
The target is the digital arrest scam. Callers pose as officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate or the police, tell the target he is under investigation, and hold him in a fake “virtual custody” over video call using forged papers and staged backdrops until he transfers money.
A large share of these calls open with a claim that a SIM card or a courier parcel linked to the victim’s Aadhaar has been used in a crime. That is the same misuse of connections taken on fake or borrowed identities that the photo rule is meant to shut down.
The government told the court the effort is paying off. Complaints of digital arrest on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal climbed to 1,23,672 in 2024, then fell to 58,239 in 2025 and 16,377 in the first six months of 2026. The money lost dropped over the same period from Rs 1,935.50 crore in 2024 to Rs 1,211 crore in 2025 and Rs 522.5 crore between January and June this year.
Defrauded money has been returned in 36,290 cases through 57 banks, and the e-Zero First Information Report system, which files an FIR automatically once a complaint crosses a set amount, is running in 19 states.
Subscribers can check the connections registered in their names on the government’s Sanchar Saathi portal, and flag any they do not recognise.
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