PANAJI
The Goa Government has notified the Economic Offences Cell of the Goa Police to be a police station. The notification, is significant as the EOC will now have the power to register offences and take custody of accused, etc.
Economic Offence Cell which functions from and is located at the Police Headquarters, Panaji has been notified to be a police station exclusively for the purpose of investigation of offences relating to coins and Government stamps, offences against property involving cheating, forgery, misappropriation and criminal breach of trust and offences and other connected offences punishable under the Information Technology Act, the Copyright Act, the Trademarks Act, the Reserve Bank of India Act, the Emigration Act, the Passports Act, the Foreigners Act, the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, and other allied laws for the time being in force.
The jurisdiction of the EOC will cover entire State of Goa.
The additional charge of SP (EOC) was created back in 1999-2000 in order to deal with specialised and technical cases pertaining to financial irregularities and fraud.
Without being notified as a separate police station, the EOC could not register its cases and does not operate as a round-the-clock establishment.
Several other challenges however remain including the fact that the EOC also does not have a lock-up of its own and those arrested have to be placed in the lock-ups of various police stations, making it tougher for EOC to source them for questioning each time.
EOC constantly faces a severe and constant struggle of having to match its limited manpower with exponential rise in number of cases. The sanctioned strength can be broadly broken into a Superintendent of Police, a Dy SP, two inspectors, two sub-inspectors, one assistant sub-inspector, three head constables, one lady head constable, two constables and three lady police constables. At present, it functions with almost half the required staff.
The Goa Government has notified the Economic Offences Cell of the Goa Police to be a police station. The notification, is significant as the EOC will now have the power to register offences and take custody of accused, etc.
Economic Offence Cell which functions from and is located at the Police Headquarters, Panaji has been notified to be a police station exclusively for the purpose of investigation of offences relating to coins and Government stamps, offences against property involving cheating, forgery, misappropriation and criminal breach of trust and offences and other connected offences punishable under the Information Technology Act, the Copyright Act, the Trademarks Act, the Reserve Bank of India Act, the Emigration Act, the Passports Act, the Foreigners Act, the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, and other allied laws for the time being in force.
The jurisdiction of the EOC will cover entire State of Goa.
The additional charge of SP (EOC) was created back in 1999-2000 in order to deal with specialised and technical cases pertaining to financial irregularities and fraud.
Without being notified as a separate police station, the EOC could not register its cases and does not operate as a round-the-clock establishment.
Several other challenges however remain including the fact that the EOC also does not have a lock-up of its own and those arrested have to be placed in the lock-ups of various police stations, making it tougher for EOC to source them for questioning each time.
EOC constantly faces a severe and constant struggle of having to match its limited manpower with exponential rise in number of cases. The sanctioned strength can be broadly broken into a Superintendent of Police, a Dy SP, two inspectors, two sub-inspectors, one assistant sub-inspector, three head constables, one lady head constable, two constables and three lady police constables. At present, it functions with almost half the required staff.
