Introduction

World population review has released the “crime rate by country 2023” ranking and India is placed at rank 71 with 44.43 crime index which is lower than USA and UK, which are at rank 55 and 65 respectively. This should have been a celebrating event if we were among the least crime rate countries. India has seen a surge in crimes in recent years, more than previous years creating new records every next year.

The increase in non violent crime is also not surprising, with the development of economical, financial and technological people keep finding new ways to bypass law at every point they get.

Some might not even be aware that they might be breaking a law which for them could be unethical but necessary or just plain ignorance. This has raised some questions about making laws more lenient or making them more strict towards the general public.

Debates about making certain things illegal and criminal, and certain things legal and not criminals are always happening in parliament, and society in general. But the perception of what can be considered a crime is changing with every generation, new crimes are being recognised and old crimes are being decriminalised. How does one get to know what is right and wrong especially in a country like India with various different cultures and practices and what are different crimes which do not get the attention and treatment they need?

What is crime?

There is no fixed definition of a crime. If we are to believe some judicial opinions and treatises, the answer is simple, circular, and largely useless: A “crime” is anything that lawmakers say is a crime. That could make “being left-handed” or “having the flu” a crime if a legislature chose to do so.^[1]

Crime is defined as any act performed or omitted that constitutes an offence and is penalised by law. Crime is an illegal conduct that is prohibited and punishable by the state or the law governing that state. In other words, everything that endangers public welfare is a crime. Crime is defined as human behaviour that is universally condemned by society. However, in the current definition, a crime is any conduct that is banned by the applicable criminal law and results in punishment.^[2]

What is criminal activity

There is no proper definition to describe criminal activities. In India, the Indian Penal Code of 1860 (IPC) states the punishment for most criminal offences. The IPC has also not defined criminal activities. However, it has laid down certain facts which can be considered as what can come under the purview of criminal offences. As per Section 40, anything which is punishable by the IPC can be stated as an offence. The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1908, also to an extent defines criminal offences. It states that any act or omission which is punishable by any law in force, and also any act on which a complaint is made under Section 20 of the Cattle-Trespass Act, 1871, can be referred to as a crime.^[3]

Crime is an act or omission done by a person which is harmful to people or society in general. The actions taken in criminal activities are always in rem, that is, against the whole world. When any criminal activity is committed, action is taken against the accused by the concerned State or government.^[4]

Types of crimes

Crime activity can be further classified into offences of different types such as:

Personal crime

Personal crimes are usually generalized as acts of violence that cause physical, emotional, or psychological harm to the victim.Some of the common personal crimes are assault, battery, rape, murder, and kidnapping.^[5]

Property crime

Property crimes involve the damage or destruction of another person’s property. It also includes theft, burglary, and vandalism.^[6]

Statutory crime

Statutory crimes are offences created by statutes or laws passed by legislatures.The most common statutory crimes are DUI, drug offences, and traffic offences.^[7]

Inchoate crime

Inchoate crimes are offences that are committed in furtherance of a crime. They are also known as incomplete crimes because the criminal act is not completed. The most common inchoate crimes are attempt, conspiracy, and solicitation.^[8]

Hate crime

Hate crimes are offences that are motivated by bias or prejudice against a certain group of people. Some of the common hate crimes are assault, battery, vandalism, and property damage.^[9]

White collar crime

White-collar crimes are nonviolent offences committed by business professionals occupying high positions in organisations to gain financial benefits. The most common white-collar crimes are embezzlement, fraud, and money laundering.^[10]

Organised crime

Organised crimes are offences that are committed by groups or organisations of people. These crimes are usually complex and involve multiple participants. The most common organised crimes are drug trafficking, human trafficking, and money laundering.^[11]

Crimes against morality

Crimes against morality are also known as victimless crimes because no victim or complainant exists. The most common crimes against morality are prostitution, gambling, and drug use.^[12]

Crimes against humanity

Crimes against Humanity are offences committed against a group of people with the intention of destroying, harming, or killing them. The most common crimes against Humanity are genocide, war crimes, and crimes against civilians.^[13]

Types of crimes under indian penal code(IPC)

There are a lots of crimes under IPC few of them are listed below:

Crime against property
Crime against body
Crime against public order
Economic crime
Crime against woman
Crime against children

What is ethics

Ethics is the philosophical treatise which studies human behaviour and tries to determine what is right and wrong behaviour.^[14]The Indian term for morality and ethics is ‘dharma’. Dharma comes from the root ‘dhr’, which means to hold together. And thus the function of dharma is to hold the human society together for its stability and growth. Right conduct is essential if the human society is to survive. The dharma in Hinduism is co-extensive with morality. Dharma in the Vedas refers to the highest truth and power and it is very much understood as the performance of Vedic sacrifices and other rituals in the Vedas and Dharmasastras. So Dharma is understood in Vedas as duty par-excellence.^[15]

Ethics helps to study what is good and bad which is generally really subjective and reflects people’s beliefs, culture and attitude. Ethics has been different throughout history with every new generation a different set of values are considered “ethically” or “morally” good or bad, they also differ for geography and different age groups with various cultures and practices.

Difference between morality and ethics

Morals are the welfare principles enunciated by the wise people, based on their experience and wisdom. They were edited, changed or modified or evolved to suit the geography of the region, rulers (dynasty), and in accordance with development of knowledge in science and technology and with time. Morality is different from Ethics in the following ways:^[16]

Morality	Ethics
1. More general and prescriptive based on customs and traditions.	1. Specific and descriptive. It is a critical reflection on morals.
2. More concerned with the results of wrong action, when done.	2. More concerned with the results of a right action, when not done.
3. Thrust is on judgment and punishment, in the name of God or by laws.	3. Thrust is on influence, education, training through codes, guidelines, and correction.
4. In case of conflict between the two, morality is given top priority, because the damage is more. It is more common and basic.	4. Less serious, hence second priority only. Less common. But relevant today, because of complex interactions in the modern society.
5. Example: Character flaw, corruption, extortion, and crime.	5. Example: Notions or beliefs about manners, tastes, customs, and towards laws.

Morality and crime

In order to safeguard people who are vulnerable and weak in body or mind from harmful and offensive acts, laws are made which differ from society to society. One act which is recognised as a crime just because it is immoral can be decriminalised or might not even be crime to begin with because the moral values in this society is different from the previous one which in turn might also depend upon the religions or culture of that particular society.

Relationship of crime, ethics and legality

The goal of criminal law is to “decrease criminal activity to the point that society can absorb the negative consequences of crime without jeopardizing its stability. To put it another way, the purpose of the criminal law is to guarantee that socially destructive activities do as little harm as possible to society.” This is not to reject the a posteriori link between morals and crimes, in the sense that it may be immoral to perform an act that is proclaimed to be criminal simply because one is morally obligated to follow society’s positive laws. Though morality and legality can be differentiated, they are not completely separate entities. They are linked by the fact that they both seek to maintain social order. There is a set of wrongs that the law and morals react to with widespread hostility. Murder, rape, arson, robbery, theft, and other criminal wrongs are among them. In this case, the law and morality firmly reinforce and enhance each other. Everything that is thought to increase the moral culpability of a particular crime is considered a justification to increase the harshness of the punishment meted out to it.^[17]

In criminal law, the principle of legality is designed to guarantee the primacy of the law in criminal procedure, so that neither state prosecution nor defendants are exposed to arbitrary bias. The principle of legality assures that no defendant may be punished arbitrarily or retroactively by the state. This means that a person cannot be convicted of a crime that has never been publicly announced, nor by a law that is excessively unclear, nor by a penal law that is passed retroactively to criminalize an action that was not criminal at the time it occurred.^[18]

Needless to say not everything which is legal is moral and everything which is immoral is not always illegal or criminal. Since morality varies from society to society, it is difficult to see certain acts or omissions as immoral or moral enough to make them a crime. For example, if one sees an infant by the roadside and decides to leave it there, this is considered immoral and the person does not hold any legal duty or responsibility to help the infant. Likewise there are lots of crimes, acts or omissions which do not have any legality or are even considered crimes which might be unethical.

Few crimes under indian penal code(IPC)

There are lots of crimes which bring out the conflict between ethics and legality. Some of them are mentioned below:

White collar crime

White Collar Crimes are the crimes committed by a person of high social status and respectability during the course of his occupation. It is a crime that is committed by salaried professional workers or persons in business and that usually involves a form of financial theft or fraud.White Collar Crimes are committed by people who are involved in otherwise, lawful businesses and covers a wide range of activities. The perpetrators hold respectable positions in the communities unless their crime is discovered. The laws relating to white-collar crimes depends upon the exact nature of the crime committed.^[19]

There are different types of white collar crimes some of them are as follow:

Bank Fraud
Blackmail
Bribery
Embezzlement
Extortion
Money laundering
Tax fraud
Cyber crime

There has been an increase in white collar crime in India recently with the growth and development of technology. The reason for these crimes are mostly nothing to do with the law but reason might be plain greed or not even realising that they have committed an offence just because they might have done it out of necessity to satisfy their ego or support their family or peer pressure.

Commissioner of Wealth Tax, Gujarat-II, Ahmedabad v. Arvind Narottam, in this case Supreme Court observed that “It is true that tax avoidance in an under-developed developing economy should not be encouraged on practical as well as ideological grounds. One would wish that one could get the enthusiasm of Justice Holmes that taxes are the price of civilization and one would like to pay that price to buy civilization. But the question which many ordinary taxpayers very often in a country of shortages with ostentious consumption and deprivation for the large masses ask, is does he with taxes buy civilization or does he facilitate the wastes and ostentiousness of the few. Unless wastes and ostentiousness in Government’s spending are avoided or eschewed, no amount of moral sermons would change people’s attitude to tax avoidance.”^[20]

Ram Narain Poply v. Central Bureau of Investigation, this case is related to scam of nationalized banks’ money by Harshad Mehta and his group. The Supreme Court observed that “the cause of the community deserves better treatment at the hands of the Court in the discharge of its judicial functions. The Community or the State is not a persona non grata whose cause may be treated with disdain. The entire community is aggrieved if economic offenders who ruin the economy of the state are not brought to book; A murder may be committed in the heat of moment upon passions being aroused. An economic offence is committed with cool calculation and deliberate design with an eye on personal profit regardless of the consequence to the Community. A disregard for the interest of the community can be manifested only at the cost of forfeiting the trust and faith of the community in the system to administer justice in an even handed manner without fear of criticism from the quarters which view white collar crimes with a permissive eye unmindful of the damage done to the National Economy and National Interest.”^[21]

Cyber crime

Cyber law is otherwise called Digital Law or Internet Law. Cyber law India is the zone of law that manages the Internet’s relationship to technology, innovative and electronic components, including computers, programming, equipment, data frameworks and Information System (IS).^[22]

Defining cyber crimes, as “acts that are punishable by the Information Technology Act” would be unsuitable as the Penal Code, 1860 also covers many cyber crimes, such as email spoofing and cyber defamation, sending threatening emails, etc. A simple yet sturdy definition of cyber crime would be cyber crimes and information technology, unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or a target or both.^[23]

Ethics, morality and profound quality in various conditions implies fluctuated and complex implications. Each and everything which at that point was restricted to open approach, against open government assistance and which may upset open serenity perhaps named corrupt and untrustworthy.^[24]

Normal stories highlighted in the media on PC wrongdoing or computer crimes incorporate points covering hacking to infections, webcam-jackers, to web pedophiles, here and there precisely depicting occasions, here and there misinterpreting the job of innovation in such exercises. Increment in digital crime percentage has archived in the news media. Both the expansion in the occurrence of crime and the conceivable rise of new assortments of crime present difficulties for lawful frameworks, just as for law implementation.^[25]

Since people of India, especially elderly people or people of low income houses do not get lots of exposure regarding modern technology or internet they become the most vulnerable victim to these kinds of crimes. The most common crimes under cyber crimes are related to intellectual property rights like copyright infringement, data protection and privacy protection which are also less serious compared to cyber security and unethical hacking. Few laws for cyber crimes are Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 and under IPC they are as follows:^[26]

Sec 503 – Sending of threatening messages by emails.
Sec 499 – Sending defamatory messages by emails
Sec 463 – Forgery of electronic records
Sec 420 – Bogus websites, cyber frauds
Sec 463 – Email spoofing
Sec 383 – Web- jacking
Sec 500 – Email abuse
Sec 292 – Pornography
Sec 354D – Cyber Stalking

Victimless crimes

A victimless crime is an illegal act that involves consenting adults and lacks a complaining participant (Schur, 1965). Such acts have been defined as illegal, but there is no victim that claims to have been harmed; either no harm has occurred, or if harm has occurred to those involved, it is negated because its willing participants have given informed consent to the activity (Stitt, 1988). Victimless crimes are also sometimes referred to as public order offenses. Although there has been some disagreement over which crimes are victimless, five of the most commonly identified victimless crimes are gambling, drug use, pornography, prostitution, and homosexuality. Additionally, abortion is sometimes referred to as a victimless crime, although this classification has been highly controversial (Brown, Esbensen and Geis, 2010). Adultery and fornication might formerly be referred to as victimless crimes, but in most states these acts are no longer crimes (Harcourt, 1999).^[27]

Victimless crimes have been the topic of heated debate, primarily centering on the question as to whether these acts ought to be crimes at all. The arguments take several forms. One of the controversies involves the importance of personal freedom versus society’s imperative to uphold moral standards. A second issue addresses the problem of the concept of harm. Concerns are raised as to whether victimless crimes are harmful not only to the participants but to others in society, and whether such acts result in negative consequences that might not be immediately apparent. In addition, a final issue is whether attempts to control victimless crimes are helpful or detrimental to the criminal justice system and society in terms of cost effectiveness.^[28]

In Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, supreme court decriminalised all consensual sex among adults including homosexual sex.

Constitution – Validity of provision – Section 377 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of Constitution of India, 1950 – Writ Petition was filed for declaring “right to sexuality”, “right to sexual autonomy” and “right to choice of a sexual partner” to be part of the right to life guaranteed Under Article 21 of Constitution of India and further to declare Section 377 of IPC to be unconstitutional – Whether Section 377 of IPC as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults (i.e. persons above the age of 18 years who were competent to consent) in private, was violative of Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of Constitution.^[29]

Interesting prostitution is legal in India, but renting property for brothel, child prostitution, pimping are few crimes which are illegal under IPC.Budhadev Karmaskar vs. State of West Bengalis a landmark judgment that paved the way for securing the rights of sex workers.

This case brought into light the vulnerable state of sex workers and the social stigma attached to them. This ruling upholds the right of sex workers to live with dignity as prescribed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. This case also prompted the Supreme Court to frame guidelines to address the plight of sex workers to avert the possibility of any mishap of the like nature. Moreover, it sensitized the general public that sex workers are not a mere commodities and they must not be looked down upon just because of their profession. The sex workers are also human beings and they are entitled to the same rights and privileges as the other members of society.^[30]

Conclusion

The relationship of ethics, crime and legality is complex which in turn gives us opportunities to analyse and introspect our morals and values with the legal system in place. Just because some act is criminalised now does not mean it will be in the future and vice versa. But in India once a right is given it cannot be taken back. Needless to say we have a lots of area where we need to work and improve our laws which will take time depending upon the mentality of our society but recent judgement on homosexuality and sex work has given hope for the betterment of different of our society and progress. We still debate on what’s right and what’s wrong which is still a healthy debate including all the negative and positive aspects of ethics and law in crime.

By:- Surbhi Singh, 1st year student, Campus Law Center, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.

Reference

Joshua Dressler, understanding criminal law, 1.01( 7th edition,2015).
Difference between crime, tort, breach of contract and breach of trust, ipleaders, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/difference-between-crime-tort-breach-of-contract-and-breach-of-trust/, last seen on 16/04/23.
Criminal activities : their nature, scope and problems in identification, ipleaders, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/criminal-activities-nature-scope-problems-identification/ , last seen on 16/04/23.
Ibid.
What are different types of crime, social laws today, available at https://sociallawstoday.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-crime/ , last seen 16/04/23.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
IGNOU, ethics, importance and challenges of ethics, unit 2, available at pdf4exams.org, last seen on 16/04/23.
Ibid.
R.S.Naagarazan, A textbook on professional ethics and human values, 2, (2006)
Concept of crime and morality under criminal law, ipleader, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/concept-crime-morality-criminal-law/ , last seen on 17/04/23
The Principle Of Legality In The Criminal Law, upcounsel, available at https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-the-principle-of-legality-in-the-criminal-law#:~:text=1%20min%20read-,In%20criminal%20law%2C%20the%20principle%20of%20legality%20is%20designed%20to,or%20retroactively%20by%20the%20state. , last seen on 17/04/23
Analysis Of White Collar Crimes In India, ipleader, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/analysis-white-collar-crimes-india/ , last seen on 18/04/23
White-Collar Crime in India : A Socio-Legal Analysis, 22 ALJ (2014-15) 389
Ibid.
Cyber crimes and ethics in india, ipleader, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/cyber-law-ethics-india/ , last seen on 18/04/23.
Cyber Crimes and the Law: Evaluation of the Information Technology Act, 2000, (2011) PL September S-2
Supra 22.
Ibid.
Supra 22.
Victimless crimes, available at https://cstl-hhs.semo.edu/cveneziano/victimless%20crimes.htm , last seen on 18/04/23
Ibid.
Navtej Singh Johar and Ors. vs. Union of India (UOI) and Ors. (06.09.2018 – SC) : MANU/SC/0947/2018
Budhadev Karmaskar vs. State of West Bengal, lawbhoomi, available at https://lawbhoomi.com/budhadev-karmaskar-vs-state-of-west-bengal/#:~:text=Introduction-,Budhadev%20Karmaskar%20vs.,social%20stigma%20attached%20to%20them. , last seen on 18/04/23

Websites

Social laws today
SCC online
Manupatra
Lexisnexis
Ipleader
Upcounsel
Lawbhoomi
Indian kanoon

Articles

White-Collar Crime in India : A Socio-Legal Analysis

^[1] Joshua Dressler, understanding criminal law, 1.01( 7th edition,2015).

^[2]Difference between crime, tort, breach of contract and breach of trust, ipleaders, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/difference-between-crime-tort-breach-of-contract-and-breach-of-trust/, last seen on 16/04/23.

^[3]Criminal activities : their nature, scope and problems in identification, ipleaders, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/criminal-activities-nature-scope-problems-identification/ , last seen on 16/04/23.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5]What are different types of crime, social laws today, available at https://sociallawstoday.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-crime/ , last seen 16/04/23.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] Ibid.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] Ibid.

^[13] Ibid.

^[14] IGNOU, ethics, importance and challenges of ethics, unit 2, available at pdf4exams.org, last seen on 16/04/23.

^[15] Ibid.

^[16] R.S.Naagarazan, A textbook on professional ethics and human values, 2, (2006)

^[17] Concept of crime and morality under criminal law, ipleader, available at https://blog.ipleaders.in/concept-crime-morality-criminal-law/ , last seen on 17/04/23