Policing is a State subject, but cyber fraud is borderless. Discuss the federal challenges in investigating cybercrime and suggest a cooperative framework.

Under the Seventh Schedule, 'Police' and 'Public order' are State subjects. States/UTs are therefore primarily responsible for preventing, investigating and prosecuting cybercrime, and the Centre only supports them [1]. A typical fraud, however, involves a victim in one State, a caller in another and mule accounts in a third. Investigation stays tied to one jurisdiction while the crime crosses many.

Federal Challenges

• Jurisdictional mismatch: Fraud comes from hotspots such as Jamtara and Mewat, far from the victim's State. MHA needed seven Joint Cyber Coordination Teams for such multi-jurisdictional areas [2]. Arrests and evidence collection in another State depend on that State's goodwill.
• Speed vs. procedure: Money can be recovered only if it is frozen before it is siphoned off. CFCFRMS (2021) and helpline 1930 exist for this purpose [3]. Delays between States in registering cases and acting on them cost victims their money.
• Uneven capacity: Central cyber-forensic labs are located only in New Delhi, Assam and Hyderabad [4], yet investigating officers from every State depend on them, so cases queue.
• Data silos and lag: The latest NCRB conviction data available to Parliament in 2025–26 was for 2023 [5]. This makes real-time inter-State coordination and accountability difficult.
• Measuring activity, not outcomes: The Centre reports ₹8,189 crore blocked across 23.61 lakh complaints [6]. It does not report how much money was actually returned or how many cases were charge-sheeted in each State.

A Cooperative Framework

• Hub-and-spoke model: Keep I4C as the national hub. Make data-sharing through the Samanvaya platform, which maps inter-State links between crimes and criminals, mandatory for every State [2].
• Uniform inter-State protocol: Use Zero FIR/e-FIR under the BNSS with fixed timelines for transfers, notices and arrests in other States. Agree the protocol in Zonal Councils.
• Decentralised forensics: Fund State and district cyber labs with central grants, so that fewer cases wait in the central queue [4].
• Shared performance dashboard: Publish money frozen, money returned, FIRs and charge-sheets State-wise every quarter. Faster NCRB releases would support this [5][6].
• Expand JCCTs to new hotspots, and hold joint Centre–State operations with banks and telecom providers [2][3].

Cybercrime therefore needs India's federal system to act as one investigating network, not a set of separate jurisdictions. Cooperative federalism would let the Centre provide platforms, funding and standards while States keep operational control. This would make equal protection of law (Article 14) real for every digital citizen, wherever the fraudster sits.