Indian Directorate of Criminal Investigation Hiring Experts

The income tax directorate of criminal investigation of India (ITDCII) has been launched by the finance ministry of India to deal with financial crimes, especially those pertaining to black money deposited in foreign jurisdictions.

The ITDCII will also maintain a centralised repository of data collected from telephone and Internet intercepts, banking and market transactions, cross-border deals, ATM transactions, etc. The department will also develop cyber forensics capabilities and obtain latest forensics tools.

Obviously such an ambitious project requires techno legal expertise and this is the reason that the ITDCII would have experts from diverse fields. This would include financial, legal, technical, intelligence and other experts.

Now the Indian government is hiring 200 experts to meet the manpower requirements of ITDCII. These experts, who are proposed to be brought on deputation from armed forces, paramilitary and also include police personnel, will be security experts with investigating experience, technical experts and legal experts.

Besides, hiring experts, Indian government in general and department of income tax of India in particular must also consider the option of giving suitable techno legal trainings to its manpower in the fields like cyber law, cyber forensics, etc.

Besides, the help of special agents would be required to track the use and source of funds.

ITDCII has been vested with powers to enter into special agreements with central and state government agencies, as also with international agencies as part of the drive to crack down on tax-related cases that have a criminal element.

The agency has also been given powers to hire special prosecutors, develop witness protection programmes and coordinate with other agencies. A notification is to be issued to equip ITDCII with search, seizure and survey powers as well as the authority to issue summons.

This is a very good step taken by the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and we at Perry4Law and Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) welcome this step of finance minister. If need arises, Perry4Law and PTLB would also extend their techno legal expertise in this regard.