ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY

CENTRE JANGIPUR MURSHIDABAD

Session: 2021-22

TOPIC

“White collar crime”

SUBJECT

Criminology and Penology

Submitted to Submitted by
Mr. Asif
M. Daniyal Siraj
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law B.A.LL.B. (Hons) 7 th Semester
AMU, Centre Jangipur Murshidabad 18BALLB55
GL0749
 Certificate

This is to certify that M. Daniyal Siraj of B.A.LL.B. (Hons) 7th Semester of Aligarh Muslim University
Centre Murshidabad has completed his assignment of criminology and penology on the topic “White
collar crime” under guidance of Mr. Asif.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I, M.Daniyal Siraj would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher who gave me the
golden opportunity to do this assignment on the topic “White collar crime” which also helped me in
doing a lot of research. I would also like to thank my friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this
assignment. Last but not the least I would like to thank almighty for the constant blessing on me.

M. Daniyal Siraj
 CONTENTS

Page No.

1. Introduction…………………………………………………. 05
2. Historical Background.………….……….…………..….…. 06
3. Definition……………………………………….…………… 07
4. Types of white Collar Crime…………………....................... 08-09
5. Increase in white collar crime…….......................................... 10
6. Legislation………………………………………………….. 11
7. Reasons for the growth of white Collar Crimes in India…….. 12-13
8. Effects on society…………………………………………….. 14
9. Conclusion…………………………………………………... 15
Introduction

Almost all societies have certain norms, beliefs, customs and traditions which are implicitly
accepted by its members as conducive to their well being and healthy development. Infringement
of these cherished norms and customs condemned as anti-social behavior.
Thus, many writers have defined ‘crime’ as anti-social, immoral or sinful behavior. However,
according to the legal definition crime is any form of conduct which is declared to be socially
harmful in a state and as such forbidden by law under pain of some punishment. Crime can be
defined as an act or omission, which is unlawful, illegal or infringes provisions of law and which
is punishable by law.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.
White-collar crime is a nonviolent crime committed for financial gain. According to the FBI, a
key agency that investigates these offenses, “these crimes are characterized by deceit,
concealment, or violation of trust.” The motivation for these crimes is to obtain or avoid losing
money, property, or services, or to secure a personal or business advantage.
Examples of white-collar crimes include securities fraud, embezzlement, corporate fraud, and
money laundering. In addition to the FBI, entities that investigate white-collar crime include the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the National Association of Securities Dealers
(NASD), and state authorities.
2.Historical Background (white-collar crime)

The concept of white-collar crime is usually associated with E.H. Sutherland whose penetrating
work in this area focused the attention of criminologists on its demoralizing effects on the total
crime picture. Sutherland pointed out that besides the traditional crimes such as assault, robbery,
decoity, murder, rape, kidnapping, and other acts involving violence, there are certain anti-social
activities which the persons of upper strata carry on in course of their occupation of business.
In 1934 morris drew attention to the necessity of a change in emphasis regarding crime he
asserted that anti-social activities of persons of high status committed in course of their
profession must be brought within the category of crime and should be made punishable. Finally,
E.H.sutherland emphasized that these ‘upper world’ crimes which are committed by persons of
upper socio-economic groups in course of their occupation violating the trust should be termed
as  white-collar crimes  so as to be distinguished from traditional crimes which he called
‘’blue-collar crimes .
3. Definition

The concept of white-collar crime found its place in criminology for the first time in 1941 when
Sutherland first published his research paper on white-collar criminality in the American
sociological review. He defined white-collar crime as a crime committed by persons of high
social status in course of their occupation. Eg- misrepresentation through fraudulent
advertisement, infringement of patents, copyrights, and trade-marks, a publication of fabricated
balance sheets and profit and loss account of business, etc.
White-collar crimes are committed by persons of status, not for need but for greed~ sir Walter
reckless
Sutherland further pointed out that white-collar crime is more harmful to society than ordinary
crimes because the financial loss to the society from white-collar crime is far greater than the
financial loss from burglaries, robberies, larcenies, etc.
This notion was laid down for the first time in the field of criminology by Prof. Edwin
Sutherland in 1941. He defined white collar crime as “crime committed by persons of
respectability and high social status in course of their occupation”. Examples of it include
fraudulent advertisements, infringement of patents, publication of falsified balance sheet of
business, passing of goods, concealment of defects in the commodity for sale etc. These white
collar crimes by nature are such that the injury or the damage caused as a consequence of them is
so widely diffused in the large body of citizens that their enormity as regards personage victim is
almost trifling.
Hartung defines a white-collar offense as a violation of law regulating business, which is
committed for a firm by the firm or its agents in the conduct of its business.”
4. Types of White Collar Crime In India

 Bank Fraud: To engage in an act or pattern of activity where the purpose is to defraud a
bank of funds.
 Blackmail: A demand for money or other consideration under threat to do bodily harm, to
injure property, to accuse of a crime, or to expose ssecrfun
 Bribery: When money, goods, services, information or anything else of value is offered
with intent to influence the actions, opinions, or decisions of the taker. You may be
charged with bribery This whether you offer the bribe or accept it.
 Cellular Phone Fraud: The unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular
phone or service. can be accomplished by either use of a stolen phone,or where an actor
signs up for service under false identification or where the actor clones a valid electronic
serial number (ESN) by using an ESN reader and reprograms another cellular phone with
a valid ESN number.
 Computer fraud: Where computer hackers steal information sources contained on
computers such as: bank information, credit cards, and proprietary information.
 Counterfeiting: Occurs when someone copies or imitates an item without having been
authorized to do so and passes the copy off for the genuine or original item.
Counterfeiting is most often associated with money however can also be associated with
designer clothing, handbags and watches.
 Credit Card Fraud: The unauthorized use of a credit card to obtain goods of valwatche
 Currency Schemes: The practice of speculating on the future value of currencies.
 Educational Institutions: Yet another field where collar criminals operate with impunity
are the privately run educational institutional in this country. The governing bodies of
those institutions manage to secure large sums by way of government grants of financial
aid by submitting fictitious and fake details about their institutions. The teachers and
other staff working in these institutions receive a meager salary far less than what they
actually sign for, thus allowing a big margin for the management to grab huge amount in
this illegal manner.
 Embezz1ement: When a person who has been entrusted with money or property
appropriates it for his or her own use and benefit.
 Environmental Schemes: The overbilling and fraudulent practices exercised by
corporations which purport to clean up the environment.
 Extortion: Occurs when one person illegally obtains property from another by actual or
threatened force, fear, or violence, or under cover of official right.
 Engineering : In the engineering profession underhand dealing with contractors and
suppliers, passing of sub-standard works and materials and maintenance of bogus records
of work-charged labour are some of the common examples of white collar crime.
Scandals of this kind are reported in newspapers and magazines almost every day in our
country.
 Fake Employment Placement Rackets: A number of cheating cases are reported in various
parts of the country by the so called manpower consultancies and employment placement
agencies which deceive the youth with false promises of providing them white collar jobs
on payment of huge amount ranging from 50 thousands to two lakhs of rupees.
 forgery: When a person passes a false or worthless instrument such as a check or
Counterfeit security with the intent to defraud or injure the recipient.
 Health Care Fraud: Where an unlicensed health care provider provides services under
the guise of being licensed and obtains monetary benefit for the service.The white collar
crimes which are common to Indian trade and business world are hoardings, profiteering
and black marketing. Violation of foreign exchange regulations and import and export
laws are frequently resorted to for the sake of huge profits. That apart, adulteration of
foodstuffs, edibles and drugs which causes irreparable danger to public health is yet
another white collar crime common in India.
 Insider Trading: When a person uses inside, confidential, or advance information to trade
in shares of publicly held corporations.
 Insurance Fraud: To engage in an act or pattern of activity wherein one obtains proceeds
from an insurance company through deception.
 Investment Schemes: Where an unsuspecting victim is contacted by the actor who
promises to provide a large return on a small investment.
 Kickback: Occurs when a person who sells an item pays back a portion of the purchase
price to the buyer.
 Larceny/Theft: When a person wrongfully takes another person’s money or property with
the intent to appropriate, convert or steal it.
 Legal Profession: The instances of fabricating false evidence, engaging professional
witness, violating ethical standards of legal profession and dilatory tactics in collusion
with the ministerial staff of the courts are some of the common practices which are, truly
speaking, the white collar crimes quite often practiced by the legal practitioners.
 Money Laundering: The investment or transfer of money from racketeering, drug
transactions or other embezzlement schemes so that it appears that its original source
either cannot be traced or is legitimate.
 Medical profession: White collar crimes which are commonly committed by persons
belonging to medical profession include issuance of false medical certificates, helping
illegal abortions, secret service to dacoits by giving expert opinion leading to their
acquittal and selling sample-drug and medicines to patients or chemists in India
 Tax Evasion: When a person commits fraud in filing or paying taxes.The complexity of
tax laws in India has provided sufficient scope for the tax-payers to evade taxes. The
evasion is more common with influential categories of persons such as traders,
 businessmen, lawyers, doctors, engineers, contractors etc. The main difficulty posed
before the Income Tax Department is to know the real and exact income of these
Professionals. It is often alleged that the actual tax paid by these persons is only a fraction
of their income and rest of the money goes into circulation as ‘black money.

5. Increase in White Collar Crimes

India has seen a huge increase in white-collar crimes in recent times. It is believed that these
crimes hurt the nation way more than regular crimes due to the amounts involved in these
crimes. They are generally for crores of rupees and for a developing country like India this is not
healthy.
The society starts to question the role of authority, there is distrust among the public and it may
lead to instability of governments. With the increase in these crimes safety even in the virtual
world is questioned. The digital thefts have started posing a lot of questions on the safety of one
person over virtual means. With the government’s failure to act towards the victims of this
crime, society is left vulnerable to more such attacks.
6. Legislation

There are provisions or laws that help to cut down the impact or stop from anyone escaping the
law. The goal is to give punishment to anyone who has broken these laws.
 The Companies Act 1960
 The Income Tax Act 1961
 Indian Penal Code 1860
 The Prevention of Corruption Act 1988
 The Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002
 The Special Court Act 1992
The aforementioned laws generally are used while trying to punish a convict. There are different
sections under these acts but there is nothing specific at times. The IPC is the main basis for most
punishments. It remains uncertain if India will have a very specific set of laws for white-collar
crimes in India.
7. 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
greGree

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.

Competition
Herbert Spencer after reading ‘On the Origin of Species’ by Darwin, coined a phrase that
evolution means ‘survival of the fittest’. This implies that there will always be a competition
between the species, and the best person to adapt himself to the circumstances and conditions
should survive.
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.

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.
8. Effect on society

White collar crimes are harmful to the society for those people who should be cited as a moral
example and who must behave responsibly are one committing such crimes. The society thus
becomes polluted.
When the former director of Andhra Bank and the directors of a Gujarat based pharma company,
Sterling Biotech, were arrested for their involvement in 5000 crore fraud case. They used to
withdraw money from bank accounts of several benami companies. This was one big scam
which put the people in fear.
Also in 2018 the Punjab National Bank (PNB) found that fraudulent transactions of value 11,
346 crore rupees have been taking place in its Mumbai branch. “The Staff there used to fake LoU
( Letter of Understanding) for the buyer’s credit to the company of Nirav modi and Gitanjali
Group”, as published in the Business World.
9. Conclusion

White Collar crimes are done by the well-respected people of society and are a sad fact that it is
rising in India. There are many different crimes that come under White Collar crimes but more
than the kind of crime it is about who is doing the crime. In a country like India, it is important to
cut down the crime rates as it hampers with the development of the nation. These crimes need to
be stopped as soon as possible as these are spread evenly in the infrastructure system of the
country. It remains to be seen if India will have stricter laws for this matter.