Srinagar: Over the past two years, there has been an increase in economic offence charges in Jammu and Kashmir.
All crimes that take place while engaging in any type of economic or commercial activity are considered economic offences.
The Indian Penal Code of 1860 (IPC) first dealt with such offences, such as corruption and criminal misbehaviour.
J&K reported 621 cases of economic crime in 2019, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
In 2020, it dropped to 611, however, J&K had 669 economic offence instances in 2021.
The data also shows that in 2021, the charge sheet rate was 66.4.
According to the data, out of 669 incidents involving economic crimes, 590 involve forgery, deception, and fraud, eight involve counterfeiting, and 71 involve a criminal breach of trust.
According to the data, there have been 12 criminal cases of trust violation in J&K. Out of the 12, 10 criminal trust breaches totaled less than Rs 1 lakh and the remaining two range from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
In addition, there are 105 instances of fraud, deception, and forgery.
The 38 cases of forgery, deceit, and fraud totaled less than Rs 1 lakh, 56 cases totaled Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh, 8 cases totaled Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore, and three cases totaled Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 crore.
According to the data, Police resolved 2642 cases of economic offences resolved while investigations into 1948 cases from the prior years were still open.
Overall, 669 cases were reported and an investigation was reopened in 25 cases.
According to further data, 161 cases in J&K had incorrect final reports.
A number of 69 cases of true but insufficient proof, untraced, or not were also present.
Charge sheets were filed in 455 cases.
The data also indicates that Police resolved 685 cases in total while one case was dismissed.
The data shows that 26 cases were left open for further investigation. The charge sheet rate is 66.4 percent currently.
The percentage of cases still pending for economic crimes is 74 percent.
The NCRB data also indicates that 3466 cases from the prior years are still awaiting trial.
There are now 3921 cases in the court, and 10 cases have been dismissed.
Pertinently, the government last year had declared the offices of six wings of the Crime Branch J&K as the Police Stations “for the purpose of registration and investigation” of varied economic offences besides special, cyber crimes.
These wings included Special Crime Wing (SCW), Jammu; Special Crime Wing (SCW), Srinagar; Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Jammu; Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Srinagar; Cyber Crime Investigation Centre for Excellence (CICE), Jammu, and Cyber Crime Investigation Centre for Excellence (CICE), Srinagar.
The Superintendents of Police, posted in the offices at Special Crime Wing (SCW), Jammu; Special Crime Wing (SCW), Srinagar; Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Jammu; Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Srinagar and the Deputy Superintendents of Police, in respect of offices at Cyber Crime Investigation Centre for Excellence (CICE), Jammu and Cyber Crime Investigation Centre for Excellence (CICE), Srinagar would be the Station House Officer (SHO) of their respective Police Stations.
