Study of Economic Crimes in India with Special Emphasis on Financial Market Crimes and Control Measures

Abstract

Crimes in whatever form or category they may fall in, impact mankind in multifarious ways. They damage democratic development, skew social development, inhibit industrial development and endanger economic development. Overall crime is the antithesis of development and is strongly pitted against it. Development is an innate urge nurtured by nations. Economic development, a prerequisite for development of any other kind, and development is also intrinsically linked to mutual and international cooperation.The United Nations Declaration and the Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order (1974) aims at the creation of better conditions so that all peoples may attain a decent life. It then proceeds to define new guiding principles for the future course of crime prevention and criminal justice in the context of development needs and the goals of an International Development Strategy for the third U.N. Development Decade. This would appear as a collective global response towards development, the key element being economic development.Countries, without exception, have been spurred into economic activities in the recent decades, with the objective of ensuring improved quality of living for their citizens. The 'haves' sharing with the 'have nots' through monetary and material aids became a norm, serving mutual interests equally. As if to add conviction to the trite saying that 'good and evil go together' is the emergence of new forms of crime, more sophisticated at exploiting loopholes and opportunities. These are characterized as economic crimes, growingly becoming the order of the day, robbing the masses of the assurances of the State.The global march from the industrial age to the economic age is confronted principally by the growth of crime that impedes progress towards an egalitarian society. The disruptive effects of crime, particularly economic crime, that makes mankind collective victims, can not be checkmated unless countries stand united. The effective countermeasures against economic crime need, therefore, to be on a firm foundation of international cooperation.