Over the past decade, the Delhi Police has undertaken significant reorganization to improve cybercrime enforcement. Today, the Delhi Police focuses anti-cybercrime enforcement through its specialized Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) Unit and dedicated Cyber Police Stations in each of Delhi’s 15 districts.
The need to reorganise is obvious: Indian police stations investigate offences within defined territorial jurisdictions, and can summon witnesses only within their own or an adjoining police station’s territory. The Delhi Police’s departure from territorial jurisdiction raises 2 important questions: (i) Can executive instructions replace territorial jurisdiction with pecuniary jurisdiction; and (ii) should the amount of money involved determine police priorities?
A November 2021 Delhi Government Notification (2021 Notification) established 15 Cyber Police Stations across each of Delhi’s 15 police districts. While the 2021 Notification granted Cyber Police Stations expanded jurisdiction over an entire district rather than the ordinary sub-unit, territoriality remained the core organising principle. A December 2021 Delhi Police standing order (Standing Order) supplements this by prescribing ‘functional’ and ‘pecuniary’ jurisdiction over ‘online financial crime’. The Standing Order defines ‘online financial crime’ to include fraud related to internet-banking, UPI, debit/credit cards, impersonation, identity theft, or hacking. The Standing Order divides territorial jurisdiction between Cyber Police Stations, except where the ‘cheated amount’ exceeds INR 10 lakh or the number of victims exceeds 10. Such cases are transferred to the IFSO Unit. A September 2022 amendment to the Standing Order raises this pecuniary threshold to INR 50 lakh. Where the ‘cheated amount’ is over INR 2 crore, the matter must be transferred to the IFSO, or, depending on the investigation’s complexity, to the Delhi Economic Offences Wing.
The latest shift towards pecuniary jurisdiction comes from a 2025 Delhi Police Circular (2025 Circular), issued following the Ministry of Home Affairs’ establishment of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). The 2025 Circular prescribes a 3-tiered pecuniary model of direct FIR transfers depending on the ‘scammed amount’: SHO, Cyber Police Stations (INR 10-25 lakh), the DCP Crime (Cyber) (INR 25-50 lakh) and the DCP IFSO (above 50 lakh). Presumably, and by implication, local police will now investigate where the ‘scammed amount’ is less than INR 10 lakh.
Arguably, the Standing Order, and 2025 Circular are a formal exercise of powers under Section 36 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), reenacted as Section 30 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), which empowers higher-ranking police officers to exercise the powers of an officer-in-charge of a police station. Yet, the effect of a ‘standing order’ is routine transfer and greater police resources directed towards high-value or multi-victim crimes. The State owes a duty to maintain law and order equally to all its subjects. Pecuniary jurisdiction is, therefore, alien to criminal law. While money or victim count can measure a crime’s impact, ‘standing orders’ that institutionalise priority to ‘high-value’ crime lack statutory basis and are contrary to existing law.
Consider the ‘adjoining police station’ construct under Section 160 CrPC (reenacted as Section 179 of the BNSS), premised on an absence of overlapping jurisdiction. The Cyber Police Station’s jurisdiction overlaps with every local station in its district, and ‘adjoins’ every other local station along the district’s borders. The IFSO’s and EOW’s ‘functional’ or pecuniary jurisdiction extends across all of Delhi, at which point the ‘adjoining police station’ construct breaks down completely since it cannot apply outside the National Capital Territory.
Statutory territorial jurisdiction, per the BNSS, occupies the field completely. The Supreme Court has consistently held that executive instructions may supplement statutory provisions in an unoccupied field of law but cannot override or amend them. However much the 2021 Notification, Standing Order, and 2025 Circular may facilitate effective investigation, the issue of competence remains: are they ultra-vires the BNSS and the CrPC for substantially overriding territorial jurisdiction with pecuniary and ‘functional’ criteria?
Even normatively, the assumption that money or victim count can be the sole basis to prioritise police resources is flawed. A wealthy industrialist losing INR 51 lakh in a digital arrest fraud automatically receives specialised IFSO resources, as does a group of 11 individuals defrauded of INR 5,000/- each through a fictitious stock-trading platform. A rickshaw puller who loses INR 40,000/- to an online scam, perhaps his life’s savings; or a victim of revenge porn do not. Those with enough bargaining power to move the criminal justice system, individually with money or collectively in numbers, are not the most vulnerable victims of crime. Yet, Delhi’s cybercrime framework arbitrarily prioritises this class of victims over others. While discretion is essential given limited police resources, it must remain anchored in law. Our legal system recognises the centrality of victims within the criminal process, and that arbitrariness is antithetical to equality.
The conundrum is unlikely to reach court, given (i) the limited utility to a defence lawyer in transferring an investigation between police stations; and (ii) the Standing Order and 2025 Circular not being easily available to the public and being couched as ‘internal’ administrative directions (this article was made possible through multiple RTIs and requests for documents across several Delhi police stations, a handful of which were met with helpful responses).
Delhi’s evolving cybercrime framework may certainty benefit victims who meet its arbitrary thresholds. At the same time, it raises a fundamental question: can financial value legitimately become the State’s measure of criminal harm?
