B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 10 White Collar Crimes 2014 Dec Question Paper with Solutions

1. It is a crime, conduct punishable by law.
2. The offender is a person of respectability.
3. He has high social status.
4. He commits it in the course of his occupation, using his work.

Indian writing calls the wider field privileged class deviance: wrongs by those whose power or position protects them. The professions are a central part of it.

Why the professions breed it

1. Expert knowledge. The client cannot judge whether the operation, the legal advice or the audit was needed or honest.
2. Trust. The client hands over his body, his case or his money.
3. Monopoly. Only a registered doctor or an enrolled advocate may do the work, so the client has no real choice.
4. Self-regulation. Professionals are judged first by their own councils, which are often slow and lenient.
5. Payment by the person served. An auditor is paid by the company he audits, and a valuer by the borrower. That is a built-in conflict of interest.

Cases. In Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab, AIR 2005 SC 3180, a patient died at a Ludhiana hospital when the oxygen cylinder brought to him was empty. The Supreme Court held that a doctor is criminally liable only for gross negligence, not for an error of judgment. In Poonam Verma v. Ashwin Patel, AIR 1996 SC 2111, a homeopath treated a patient with allopathic drugs and the patient died. The Court held that practising a system one is not qualified in is negligence per se. In V. Kishan Rao v. Nikhil Super Speciality Hospital, (2010) 5 SCC 513, a woman with malaria was treated for typhoid and died. The Court held that expert evidence is not needed in every simple case of medical negligence.

Lawyers

Forms. Misappropriating clients' money; deceiving clients about their cases; touting for briefs; tampering with witnesses; colluding with the other side; and strikes that abandon clients.

Law and regulator. The State Bar Councils punish professional or other misconduct under section 35 of the Advocates Act 1961. The standards are in the Bar Council of India Rules, Part VI, Chapter II.

Auditors, valuers and engineers

Forms. Certifying false accounts; valuing property to the figure a borrower wants; certifying building work never done or materials never used. Their certificate is what banks, investors and buyers rely on, so a false one lets other frauds through.

Law and regulator. An auditor may have reason to believe that a fraud is being committed in the company. Section 143(12) of the Companies Act 2013 then requires him to report it. Large frauds go to the Central Government. Section 447 covers fraud of ten lakh rupees or more, or one per cent of turnover if lower. It punishes it with six months to ten years and a fine up to three times the amount. The minimum is three years where public interest is involved. The National Financial Reporting Authority oversees the auditors of specified classes of companies. The professional institutes discipline their members.

Teachers

Forms. Leaking and selling question papers; selling marks; forcing students into private tuition; plagiarism and research fraud; and abuse of power over students.

How these crimes fit the definition

1. Respectability. Each offender holds a licence or office that society trusts, and that trust is the means of the crime.
2. Occupation. The wrong is done through the work itself: the operation, the brief, the judgment, the audit, the examination or the news report.
3. Diffuse harm. One false audit or one leaked paper harms thousands of people who never meet the offender. That is why these wrongs cost society more than most street crime.

Why control is weak

1. The victim does not know. A patient or client often never learns that he was cheated.
2. Peers judge peers. Professional councils are slow and reluctant to punish their own members.

Conclusion. White collar crime, in Sutherland's words, is crime by "a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation". The professions breed it because clients rely on expert knowledge they cannot check. Doctors face BNS section 106(1), the PCPNDT and MTP Acts and the Medical Commission (Jacob Mathew, Poonam Verma). Lawyers face section 35 of the Advocates Act (V.C. Rangadurai, Harish Chandra Tiwari), and judges are public servants (Veeraswami). Auditors face sections 143(12) and 447 of the Companies Act, teachers BNS section 112, and journalists the Press Council. Control remains weak because peers judge peers and victims rarely know they were wronged.