Advocate Mahendra Limaye’s assessment of NCRB 2017 about Cyber Crimes

You can hide the hen but can’t stop the Sunrise, is old saying and it can be seen in 2017 report of NCRB about Cyber Crimes.

Government maintains that cyber crimes are quite satisfactorily contained by existing law enforcement officers with available legal framework and judicial set-up. It has been only handful of people who make more clamours about growing pace of cyber crimes but actually situation is in control. Rate of cyber crimes is only 1.7 per lac of the total Indian population meaning that in a country of 12885 lac's population total cyber crimes registered in 2017 are meager 21796, as per recently published National Crimes Record Bureau report.

But the fact is that in 2017, total cyber crimes registered in India are 21,796 as compared to 12317 registered in 2016 shows surge of @75%. So it’s difference of perception about the way you look towards cyber crimes statistics. If you go by growth in terms of percentage its 75% growth as compared to previous year but report puts it at 1.7 per lac of the population and finds no significance in growth of crime.

A country where almost 70% population enjoys benefits of digitization (?) the argument that 1.7 per lac of the population is affected by cyber crimes genuinely holds no meaning.

Karnataka and Jharkhand witnessed @200% growth followed by Chattisgarh, Telangana, Uttarakhand which witnessed @ 100% growth; Uttar Pradesh witnessed 80% growth followed by Maharashtra which witnessed 50% growth. Out of 29 states and 7 Union territories Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Nagaland and Tripura witnessed negative growth in cyber crimes.

As regards to share of states in total number of cyber crimes registered in entire India, UP witnessed maximum crimes i.e. 4971(22.1%) followed by 3604(16.5%) in Maharashtra, 3174 in Karnataka (14.6%), 1304(6%) in Rajasthan , 1204(5.5%) in Telangana and 1120(5.1%) in Assam. These six states collectively witnessed 15377 crimes i.e. almost 70% of the total crimes registered in India and suggests that there needs more focus on these states if we want to contain/curtail cyber crimes.

The cyber crimes registered under various sections of Information Technology Act are as below;

A-S 65 Tampering Computer source code – 233, B-S 66 Computer related offenses (a-e) – 10108, C-S 66f Cyber Terrorism-13 ,D-S 67 Publishing obscene info in electronic form -948, E-S 67A Continuity of Act – 401, F-S 67B- Child pornography – 46, G-S 67 c – Related to intermediaries – 11, H-S 67 Other sections  – 362

The cyber crimes registered/covered under IPC are as below;

I-IPC SECTIONS BUT UNDER CYBER CRIMES (Total 7976),J-354 D Cyber Stalking 542, K-379-381Data Theft – 307, L-420 r/w 465,468-471 Fraud – 3466, M-Credit card fraud- 395, N- ATM Fraud-1543,O- Online BANKING Fraud-804 and P- OTP Fraud-334

This break up is really strange and surprising. Sections of IPC are applied in about 8000 cases i.e. about in 30% cases registered by police in India. This shows that either police are not sure about the applicability of I T Act or are not properly trained to apply provisions of I T Act which is special act passed by parliament to deal with cyber crimes. There are various judgements of the court wherein courts have held that if provisions of I T Act are not maintainable then provisions of IPC can’t be applied in the crime owing to principle of dual jeopardy. This applicability of IPC sections also establishes that police are not comfortable with I T Act even after 19 years of its enactment.  

 The motive as per NCRB for crimes is analyzed as below

For personal revenge total 628 crimes were committed and Assam tops with 246 followed by Kerala 62 and Maharashtra 47. Fraud was motive in 12213 crimes wherein UP Tops with 3450 followed by Karnataka 2764 and Maharashtra 2171. Extortion was the motive in 906 crimes in which UP Again tops with 419 followed by Telangana 95 and Assam and AP with 65 each. Causing disrepute to someone was the motive in 1002 crimes and again UP tops with 366 followed by Maharashtra 135 and Karnataka 94. Motive of Sexual extortion was witnessed in 1460 crimes and Maharashtra topping with 462 followed by Assam 217 and UP with 117. Terrorist activities through cyber space was witnessed in 110 cases and Assam 44 followed by Rajasthan 20 and TN 13 were top three states. Hate against country was registered in 206 cases where Maharashtra tops with 57 followed by UP 51 and Karnataka with 21. Software Piracy was registered in 90 cases in which Odisha contributes almost 50% with 43 cases. Motive in category others was reported in 3756 cases in which Rajasthan has 819 cases followed by Maharashtra 619 cases , Haryana 382 cases, West Bengal 379 cases, Assam 322 cases and Telangana 304 cases.

The details state that Fraud is the most prominent motive in cyber crimes as in 12213 cases it was observed. Terrorist activities was the motive in 110 cases and Hate against country was motive in 206 cases but surprisingly cases registered under section 66F relating to cyber terrorism are only 13 indicating that something is missing in understanding the basics of cyber crimes and motives behind them.

Many times these crimes are committed by faceless criminals who are totally unknown to victims and located at different territorial locations even outside INDIA also and in the present policing system which is handicapped by jurisdictional issues in its investigation it is practically impossible to nab these criminals and hence we find very poor and pathetic report of police disposal in cyber crimes which is elaborated below.

Police disposal report

As per report 8877 cases were pending for investigation in previous year (2016) and 13635 new cases were added to investigations in the year 2017. Out of these cases 5457 cases were in the category Cases true but insufficient evidence or untraced or No clue. Total 730 cases were reported in category cases ended as Mistakes of Fact or of law or Civil dispute.

Total 3169 charge sheets were filed by the police in 2017. Total 9750 cases were disposed off by the police out of 22513 cases and most surprisingly in @ 6500 cases or 70% cases  which were disposed, investigation was never carried out meaning police investigated only 3250 cases successfully in the entire year 2017. At end of 2017 pending cases for investigation are 12750 with 32.5% charge sheeting rate and 56% pendency rate.

Judicial set-up for cyber crimes trials is also in equally pitiable condition.5712 cases were pending in courts under head Cyber crimes at start of 2017 and 3169 cases were added in 2017 making total 8881 cases before Courts in India. Out of which 44 cases were disposed off without actual trial. In 84 cases of previous year conviction was pronounced along with 31 cases of 2017. With 19 discharges and 323 acquittals conviction rate in cases of cyber crimes is merely 25%. Pendency rate is 94% and this situation is very alarming.

NCRB also published reports about 19 Metropolitan cities in India, where population is more than 2 Million. The interesting facts are as below.

Bengaluru with 2743 crimes tops the list followed by 1362 in Mumbai and 685 in Jaipur. Nagpur witnessed only 82 crimes as compared to 97 in 2016 and 102 in 2015 meaning actually there is decline in cyber crimes in Nagpur and ranks at 12’Th position.

Nagpur tops in pendency of cyber crimes are concerned with 91.9% followed by Patna with 87.7% and Delhi with 85.5%.

The overall pendency rate of 64.1% in all 19 major metropolitan cities suggest that our police machinery is inadequately trained and equipped to carry out cyber crime investigation. The crimes which are committed with use of technology can certainly be more effectively investigated by use of same technology but there seems to be lack of investigative skills on behalf of police personnel which needs to be sharpened.

Advocate Mahendra Limaye’s additional take----Whether to believe on the current report is million dollar question because it is observed that cyber crime is happening on every passing second but not reported to police or report is not taken by the police if victim goes to police station.

If our own assessment of cyber crime helpline is to be believed then we receive almost 60-70 calls per day and about 20-30 complaints through our FB page. Receiving about 100 complaints per day by an ordinary cyber crime helpline managed by CYBER AWARENESS ORGANISATION, without any SEO or promotion for past few years shows that more than 21796 CYBER CRIMES are committed in India. If premier agencies wish to undermine the supremacy of Cyber criminals and unwilling to accept the reality in cyberspace then it is misfortune of the citizen who are compelled to carry our most of the activities through online medium.