Reasons for closing cybercrime complaints not maintained properly; Delhi Police issues SOP
new delhi: While the Centre had set up the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) for reporting cybercrime, the Delhi Police have now found that in several number of cases reported on the portal, the reasons and justifications for closing complaints were not enumerated properly. As a result, the city police have now devised a standard operating procedure to close complaints on the portal.
"It is of paramount importance to make sincere and systematic efforts to take the matter to logical and before closing the inquiry. After the scrutiny of the remarks column of the portal, it has been observed that the reasons and justifications for the closure of complaints were not properly enumerated," police said, adding that the SOP seeks to provide a template as to under what circumstances a complaint can be closed.
The city police have divided the SOP into various sections detailing methods for closure of complaints which starts from common circumstances. These also include no cognizable offence being made out during inquiry, the complainant's wish to not pursue the matter, or the complainant's inability to provide supporting material for the complaint.
According to police, a complaint can be closed when the matter under dispute between two parties has been resolved amicably.
Other circumstances for closing complaints have also been detailed in the SOP. They include reversal of a debit transaction where the complainant does not essentially lose anything or cases where an email account is hacked but no theft is reported.
According to police, there are also cases, where complainant files an online cyber complaint against his, her spouse or another party. Already an FIR is registered and being investigated by police and in such cases, the complaint should be transferred to local police for further probe.
In cases where complainant's move from Delhi and wish to re-register the case at their current place of residence, the required action should be initiated by the Delhi Police, the SOP said. It added that in cases where the complainant's contact details (email, phone, etc.) are unavailable or unresponsive, a reasonable waiting time should be accounted for before taking action.
The city police have registered more than 16,900 cyber complaints from August last year to May this year and of these, 712 have been converted into FIRs while 157 complaints were rejected for want of prima facie evidence.
