White Collar Crimes

Advancement in commerce and technology has invited unprecedented growth in one of the types of white collar crimes, known as cybercrime. Cybercrimes are increasing because there is only a little risk of being caught or apprehended. India’s rank on Transparency International’s corruption perception index (CPI) has improved over the years.

Corruption, fraud, and bribery are some of the most common white collar crimes in India as well as all over the world. The Business Standard on 22.11.2016 published a report titled ‘The changing dynamics of white collar crime in India’ stating that in the last 10 years, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has found a total of 6,533 cases of corruption out of which 517 cases were registered in the past two years.

Statistics showed that 4,000 crores worth of trading were carried out using fake or duplicate PAN cards. Maharashtra showed a rapid increase in the number of online cases with 999 cases being registered. The report also mentioned that around 3.2 million people suffered a loss because of the stealing of their card details from the YES Bank ATMs which were administered by Hitachi Payment Services. 

In 2014, India was ranked 85th which subsequently improved to 76th position in 2015 because of several measures to tackle white collar crimes. In 2018, as per the report of The Economic Times, India was placed at 78th position, showing an improvement of three points from 2017, out of the list of 180 countries.

India is a developing country and white collar crimes are becoming a major cause for its under development along with poverty, health, etc. The trend of white collar crimes in India poses a threat to the economic development of the country. These crimes require immediate intervention by the government by not only making strict laws but also ensuring its proper implementation.

Reasons for the growth of white collar crimes in India ?

Greed, competition and lack of proper laws to prevent such crimes are the major reasons behind the growth of white collar crimes in India. 

Greed

The father of modern political philosophy, Machiavelli, strongly believed that men by nature are greedy. He said that a man can sooner and easily forget the death of his father than the loss of his inheritance. The same is true in the case of commission of white collar crimes. Why will a man of high social status and importance, who is financially secure, commit such crimes if not out of greed?

Easy, swift and prolong effect

The rapid growing technology, business, and political pressure has introduced the criminals to newer ways of committing white collar crimes. Technology has also made it easier and swifter to inflict harm or cause loss to the other person. Also, the cost of such crimes is much more than other crimes like murder, robbery or burglary, and so the victim would take time to recover from it. This would cut down the competition. 

Lack of stringent laws

Since most of these crimes are facilitated by the internet and digital methods of transfer payments, laws seem reluctant to pursue these cases as investigating and tracking becomes a difficult and complicated job. Why it becomes difficult to track it is because they are usually committed in the privacy of a home or office thereby providing no eyewitness for it.

Lack of awareness

The nature of white collar crimes is different from the conventional nature of crimes. Most people are not aware of it and fail to understand that they are the worst victims of crime.

Necessity

People also commit white collar crimes to meet their own needs and the needs of their family. But the most important thing that the people of high social status want to feed their ego.

The reasons behind white collar criminals going unpunished are:

Legislators and the people implementing the laws belong to the same class to which these occupational criminals belong.

The police put in less effort in the investigation as they find the process exhausting      and hard, and often these baffling searches fail to promise favourable results. 

Laws are such that it only favours occupational criminals.

The judiciary has always been criticised for its delayed judgement. Sometimes it so happens that by the time court delivers the judgement, the accused has already expired. This makes criminals loose in committing crimes. While white collar crimes are increasing at a faster rate, the judiciary must increase its pace of delivering judgements.

Mr.Chauhan has extensive experience in representing clients in white collar crime matters both at a preventative and prosecution stages. 

The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018 (“Act”) – A Sea of Change

Last year, the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill of 2013 saw the light of day and was passed by both houses of Parliament and finally came into force on July 26, 2018. The Act is an attempt at making a conscious move towards a mature anti-corruption regime in consonance with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and has introduced the following key changes to the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (“PCA“)

 Bribe giving is now an offence

Unlike the PCA, the Act now extends its scope to those who give or promise to give undue advantage to a person with an intent to induce or reward a public servant to perform their ‘public duty’ ‘improperly’, punishable with maximum imprisonment of seven years and / or fine. It is significant to note that the Act makes no specific distinction between ‘facilitation payments’ and other forms of bribery. Thus, any undue advantage including facilitation payments to public servants is prohibited.

The Act, however, grants immunity from prosecution in favour of those who are compelled to give such undue advantage provided such persons report the matter to the law enforcement authorities within seven (7) days from the date of giving the undue advantage. The Act seeks to distinguish between those pressured by the system to offer bribes and those intentionally seeking to engage in corrupt practices. Explicit provision on this is aimed at creating an effective deterrent for private parties (including companies and their officers) engaging in corrupt practices.