White-Collar Crime in India

Introduction
The concept of white-collar crimes refers to a wide range of illegal acts committed by
respectable people in various businesses establishing as part of their occupational roles.
These kinds of crimes usually occur in large and complex organizations. It refers to the
wrong or crime committed by the elites people belonging to a higher class of society during
their occupation. So, it can also be called as the crime of educated and professional elites. In
Indian society, there are numerous types of whitecollar crime, ranging from finance,
management, law, engineering, medicine, offences to environmental violations, and health
care frauds on individuals, communities, and society in general. There are more or less
complexity and uncertainty in such crimes which is not noticeable like other offences. It is
difficult to identify the victims, and victims are unaware of victimization. So, a certain
profession offers beneficial opportunities for criminal acts and corrupt and immoral practices
that hardly attract public attention. They are inclined to corrupt and dishonest practices
because of their neglect at social and educational institutions, their greediness, profit-making
mania, or want to reach on top by a short cut. These deviants have negligible regard for
honesty and other ethical values. Hence, they carry on their illegal activities with impunity
without fear of loss of prestige or status. The crimes of this nature are called, “White Collar
Crimes”.
Historical Background
The well-known definition of white-collar crime was firstly coined by the eminent American
sociologist Edwin H. Sutherland in the late 1930s. Sutherland as criminologists thought that
wrong or crime was concentrated among the urban and argued that the “respectable people
from the upper social classes committed a great deal of harmful criminal acts in the course of
their occupations and the furtherance of their economic and business interests.” According to
Sutherland (1949), “upper-class criminality was ignored by the government and the general
public because the perpetrators did not fit the common stereotype of the criminals.”
Offender based approach to defining white-collar crime emphasize as a crucial characteristic
of white-collar crime the high social status, power, and respectability of the actor. The most
well-known offence-based definition was proposed by Herbert Edelhertz in 1970. Edelhertz
defined white-collar crime as “an illegal act or series of illegal acts committed by nonphysical
means and by concealment or guile to obtain money or property, to avoid the payment or loss
of money or property, or to obtain business or personal advantage”. The offence-based
definition distinguishes white-collar crimes from other types of crime in the manner as they
are committed rather than the characteristics of the person who commits them.
White-collar crime highlights concerning a person who in the course of his or her occupation,
utilizes respectability and high social status to perpetrate an offence. Who is the white-collar
criminal? In 1989 Croall in his book stated: “White-collar criminals have traditionally
associated with high status and respectable offenders: the ‘crimes of the powerful’ and
corporate crime.” A white-collar offence reveals that offenders were typically small
businesses, employees, and those more properly described as ‘criminal businesses’. This
could be attributed to the ‘immunity’ of the corporate offender from prosecution. Croall
argued that “such patterns of offending reflect not only enforcement policies but also wider
structural and market factors.” Therefore white-collar criminals are concentrated on the
corporate offender and makeover simplistic distinctions between ‘corporate’ and other
varieties of white-collar offending.
White Collar Crimes are mostly economic offences are broadly categorized in certain classes
like banking & allied fields such as commercial, chit fund & insurance frauds tax & duty
evasion smuggling, violation of Industrial, labour, and environmental regulation, black
marketing, adulteration of food drugs, and hawala & other Benami transactions. The crimes
are also seen in drug trafficking and money laundering activities, bribery, and other corrupt
practices. Government officials are frequently reported to be engaged in many such crimes
like bank scans, fraud & computer-generated crimes, counterfeiting coins & currency, black
money, and misappropriation of government funds are the most frequently reported cases in
India.
White-collar criminal includes the following attributes
1. The person has high social status and considerable influence, enjoying respect and
trust, and belongs to the elite in society.
2. The elite have generally more knowledge, money, and prestige, and occupy higher
positions than other individuals in the population occupied.
3. Elite members are active in business, public administration, politics, congregations,
and many other sectors in society.
4. The person exploits his or her position to commit financial crime.
5. The person does not look at himself or herself as a criminal, but rather as a
community builder who applies personal rules for his or her behaviour.
6. The person may be in a position that makes the police reluctant to initiate a criminal
investigation.
7. The person has access to resources that enable the involvement of top defence
attorneys and can behave in court in a manner that creates sympathy among the
public, partly because the defendant belongs to the upper class, often a similar class to
that of the judge, the prosecutor, and the attorney.
Legal Profession & White-Collar Crime
The Industrial Revolution played a magnificent role to develop whitecollar crimes in
India. The modern free enterprise gave rise to critical legal intricacies pertaining to
property rights and diverse legal matters that paved the method for the birth of a
replacement category of professionals of advocates who within the name of providing
justice started abetting within the wrong and thereby pursued their slender interest. The
modern legal professionals started disregarding the righteous oath of serving the society
and commenced trying to find the legal loopholes and concentrated in the main in serving
to out the wealthy entrepreneurs to grow richer. The white-collar crimes committed by
these legal practitioners exclusively reaching in finding out illegal ways of taxevasion.
There are unethical practices like fabricating false evidence, participating skilled
witnesses, thereby violating moral standards of the legal profession and dilatory
techniques in collusion with the ministerial workers of the courts.
Medical Profession & White-Collar Crime
White-collar crimes in India are so widespread in different professions like medical
practitioners, engineers, businessmen, politicians, and therefore the list goes on. The
issuance of false certificates, carrying out illicit abortions, merchandising out sample
medicine, and drugs, even in some cases adulterated medicine and medicines to the
patients are usually done by medical practitioners.
White-Collar Crime in Educational Institutions & Corporate Firms
White-collar crimes are practised in day-to-day life by certain professionals within the
course of their profession like educational institutions do are available in the league to
operate with freedom. A nastier role is played by the private institutions that are least
bothered in providing the education, however, only concentrate on creating a business at
the price of a child’s future. In India, whenever any major scandal involves the media
focus, a thorough investigation continuously finds an unlawful involvement of political
parties in it. So far because the businessmen are involved, their acts of white-collar crimes
go beyond count. They’re termed because the company criminals who often, are involved
in felonious contracts, combination, and conspiracies of trade restraints, unfair labour
practices, merchandising of adulterated foods and medicines, bribing of public officers so
on and so forth. They cash in of the company veil and indulged during several crimes.
Anti-White Collar Legislation in India
The enactment of the prevention of corruption commission, 1963 established the Central
Vigilance Commission in 1964. The Central Vigilance Commissioner was vested with
considerable autonomy and legal authority to consolidate the anti-corruption work
performed by the various Ministries of the Union government. The two main tasks of the
CVC were: prevention of corruption and maintenance of integrity; and ensuring just and
fair exercise of administrative powers vested in various authorities by statutory rules or
by non-statutory executive orders. The CVC vested with the power to inquire into and
investigate complaints against acts or omissions, decisions or recommendations, or
administrative procedures or practices because they are wrong or contrary to law or
unreasonable, unjust, or improperly discriminatory per the rule of law. The Government
established the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 1963 to investigate the cases of
bribery and corruption, as well as violations of central fiscal. The Parliament enacted
various other acts like The Anti-Corruption Laws (Amendment) Act, 1967, The Benami
transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, The Consecration of Foreign Exchange and
prevention of smuggling Activities Act, 1998, The Foreign Exchange Management Act
1999, Prevention of Money Laundering Act,2002, The Prevention of Corruption Act,
(Samvat) 2006, The Right to Information Act 2005 to curb white-collar crimes and to
punish the culprits.