 "How prepared is Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing?")
On any given day, the office of the Delhi Police’s economic offences wing (EOW), next to the famous Birla Mandir in central Delhi, swarms with complainants waiting to meet senior officers.
While some are flanked by their lawyers, some come on their own. Their complaints range from cyber crimes, cheating, forgery, multi-level marketing frauds to infringement of intellectual property rights. The nature of complaints vary with the age of complainants — while youngsters mostly complain about cyber bullying, many senior businessmen come to report cases of others selling fake products under their names. Some allege cheating in property transactions or promises of lucrative returns.
But does this elite EOW have the requisite expertise to investigate a case akin to the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) scam that is being probed by its Mumbai Police counterpart? After several borrowers defaulted on payments, NSEL had failed to meet payment obligations of Rs 5,600 crore to its 13,000 investors. The borrowers had taken loans against stock that never existed.
Ranjan says EOW is modelled on the lines of CBI. The work culture is the same and investigation is based on paper trail. Each case file moves from the investigating officer (sub-inspector or assistant sub-inspector) to his immediate superior, the assistant commissioner of police, the deputy commissioner of police, the additional commissioner of police and the joint commissioner of police, in that order. Each supervising officer writes his comments on the note sheet. The difference between EOW and CBI is the involvement of prosecutors---while CBI engages them at every stage of investigation, EOW only consults prosecutors before filing a charge sheet with the judge.
“We investigate 1,000 live cases at any point of time, whereas the entire CBI doesn’t get these many cases even in a year,” Ranjan says.
Like any government department, EOW, too, lacks the sanctioned number of investigators. “We have a shortage of investigators. Each investigator handles 20-30 cases a year. All cases are tedious and take lot of time to investigate,” says a senior EOW officer, on condition of anonymity. “The charge sheets are not filed on time. So, the accused easily get bail from the court. This leads to public outcry over delay in investigations and poor conviction rate; cases remain pending for years,” the officer adds.
Another problem plaguing EOW is the temperament of its investigating officers, who are drawn from police stations for three-five years. “Some are trained at the CBI academy, but at the end of day, they are not specialised agents. Their mindsets remain those of typical police officers,” says the officer, admitting in some cases, hobnobbing of investigators with the accused can’t be ruled out.
Despite an email and several phone calls, EOW did not share its rate of success and other data for the last three years.
While some are flanked by their lawyers, some come on their own. Their complaints range from cyber crimes, cheating, forgery, multi-level marketing frauds to infringement of intellectual property rights. The nature of complaints vary with the age of complainants — while youngsters mostly complain about cyber bullying, many senior businessmen come to report cases of others selling fake products under their names. Some allege cheating in property transactions or promises of lucrative returns.
But does this elite EOW have the requisite expertise to investigate a case akin to the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) scam that is being probed by its Mumbai Police counterpart? After several borrowers defaulted on payments, NSEL had failed to meet payment obligations of Rs 5,600 crore to its 13,000 investors. The borrowers had taken loans against stock that never existed.
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Delhi EOW officers say they have successfully investigated similar cases in the past. Last November, these sleuths had arrested a couple for allegedly duping about 200,000 people of Rs 493 crore. For the Delhi Police EOW, it was one of the biggest cases, both in terms of investigation, as well as the money involved. A record 11,000 people from different states had lodged complaints with it. Investigations in the case were carried out across Delhi, Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim and Goa. The accused were finally arrested in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra.
Ranjan says EOW is modelled on the lines of CBI. The work culture is the same and investigation is based on paper trail. Each case file moves from the investigating officer (sub-inspector or assistant sub-inspector) to his immediate superior, the assistant commissioner of police, the deputy commissioner of police, the additional commissioner of police and the joint commissioner of police, in that order. Each supervising officer writes his comments on the note sheet. The difference between EOW and CBI is the involvement of prosecutors---while CBI engages them at every stage of investigation, EOW only consults prosecutors before filing a charge sheet with the judge.
“We investigate 1,000 live cases at any point of time, whereas the entire CBI doesn’t get these many cases even in a year,” Ranjan says.
Like any government department, EOW, too, lacks the sanctioned number of investigators. “We have a shortage of investigators. Each investigator handles 20-30 cases a year. All cases are tedious and take lot of time to investigate,” says a senior EOW officer, on condition of anonymity. “The charge sheets are not filed on time. So, the accused easily get bail from the court. This leads to public outcry over delay in investigations and poor conviction rate; cases remain pending for years,” the officer adds.
Another problem plaguing EOW is the temperament of its investigating officers, who are drawn from police stations for three-five years. “Some are trained at the CBI academy, but at the end of day, they are not specialised agents. Their mindsets remain those of typical police officers,” says the officer, admitting in some cases, hobnobbing of investigators with the accused can’t be ruled out.
Despite an email and several phone calls, EOW did not share its rate of success and other data for the last three years.