Cryptic Investigation & Wrong Suggestion in Cyber Fraud: A Case Study in Bureaucratic Buck-Passing

The Right to Information Act, 2005, rests on a simple promise: citizens deserve to know how public authorities handle matters that affect them. But what happens when a department’s own records contradict its RTI reply? A recent Second Appeal before the Uttar Pradesh Information Commission lays bare exactly this problem. A citizen, defrauded through a fake online advertisement, filed grievance after grievance and eventually an RTI application, only to be told the very officers who investigated his case didn’t exist on record. Yet the department’s own files told a different story entirely. This is a textbook case of Cryptic Investigation & Wrong Suggestion in Cyber Fraud handling, where available information gets denied and citizens get pointed toward remedies that can’t actually work. The pattern raises questions well beyond one person’s complaint.

Introduction

The Right to Information Act, 2005, rests on a simple promise. Citizens deserve to know how public authorities handle matters that affect them. But what happens when a department’s own records contradict its RTI reply? A recent Second Appeal before the Uttar Pradesh Information Commission exposes exactly this problem. It’s a textbook case of cryptic investigation and wrong suggestion in cyber fraud handling. It raises questions well beyond one citizen’s complaint.

The Original Grievance: Where Cyber Fraud Meets a Cryptic Investigation

The case begins with an everyday cyber fraud. A citizen ordered what Facebook advertised as a “non-invasive blood sugar monitor” from an online seller. A hair-dye shampoo arrived instead, and ₹679 changed hands as payment. He responded the way any citizen should. He filed a formal grievance, first through the Central Government’s CPGRAMS portal. Then he submitted it through Uttar Pradesh’s own IGRS system.

What followed was a slow tour through India’s grievance-redressal machinery. The complaint travelled from the Ministry of Home Affairs down through the state police hierarchy — the Inspector General, the Superintendent of Police, the Circle Officer, and finally the local police station. It ended with a terse remark: “Case Disposed Of.” No explanation followed. No one shared any findings. Silence stood in for closure.

Turning to the RTI Act

Dissatisfied, the citizen filed an RTI application. He sought six specific items: the seller’s legal identity and registered address, the courier platform’s KYC details for the trader, the bank account that received the payment. He also requested the full investigation report, and the names and designations of the officers who investigated and approved the case’s closure.

The reply he received was revealing, mostly for what it left out. The Public Information Officer, who worked out of the local police station, called most of the information “not available with this office.” He termed the bank account details exempt as third-party information. Most strikingly, he claimed that “no public servant of the local station is appointed to this matter.” He stated that “a final investigation report cannot be given at the station level.

The Core Contradiction: A Cryptic Investigation Exposed

This is where the case turns instructive for anyone who cares about transparency and accountability; furthermore, it’s also where the cryptic investigation at the heart of this cyber fraud case comes fully into view. Additionally, the citizen’s own grievance file, which that very same police establishment holds, tells a different story entirely. Specifically, a Sub-Inspector conducted a site verification at the complainant’s residence, complete with a GPS-tagged photograph. Moreover, a Circle Officer formally investigated the matter and submitted a report. Subsequently, the Additional Superintendent of Police reviewed that report and forwarded it up the chain. Ultimately, it reached the Chief Minister’s Office in Lucknow.

So the information the RTI reply called nonexistent already sat in black and white. The same department had generated it in the ordinary course of this very case. Genuine unavailability isn’t the issue here. Negligence, or design, kept available information out of the citizen’s hands.

The Section 6(3) Problem

The RTI Act anticipates situations exactly like this one. Section 6(3) requires a public authority to transfer a request within five days when another authority holds the information sought. It also applies if another authority has a closer functional connection to that information. Additionally, the authority must inform the applicant of that transfer. Ironically, the responding officer admitted in writing that only the bank could supply certain details, and that a transfer decision needed “a competent authority” beyond the local station’s power.

Having said as much, the obvious next step was to make that transfer. Instead, officials simply closed the file. The citizen ended up with half-answers and no lawful path forward.

The Wrong Suggestion: Why “Go to the Consumer Forum” Doesn’t Work

Perhaps the most telling part of this story is the wrong suggestion police offered as an alternative remedy: approach the Consumer Forum. That advice sounds reasonable on its face. It proves impossible in practice. A consumer complaint requires naming the opposite party — its legal identity, registered address, and contact particulars sufficient for serving notice. Those are precisely the details the RTI reply refused to disclose.

The result is a closed loop. Officials deny the seller’s identity under RTI, then direct the citizen to sue that same, now-unidentifiable, seller in a different forum. Either investigators never verified the identity in the first place, making the case’s closure arbitrary. Or, the identity sits on file and officials simply withheld it. Both possibilities trouble the record. Both point to the same failure: an investigation that looked thorough on paper but gave the citizen nothing he could actually use.

Who Bears the Duty to Investigate? (Cryptic Investigation & Wrong Suggestion in Cyber Fraud)

A broader principle sits beneath this case. Once police become aware of facts suggesting a cognizable offence — here, online cheating and financial fraud involving digital transactions — the duty to investigate becomes a statutory obligation of the investigating agency itself. That duty covers tracing bank accounts and courier-registered sellers. It doesn’t wait for a citizen to specifically demand that a specialised cyber wing step in. Suggesting otherwise asks ordinary citizens to direct their own police investigations. That inverts the basic logic of law enforcement.

Why This Matters Beyond One Case (Cryptic Investigation & Wrong Suggestion in Cyber Fraud)

It would be easy to write this off as an isolated bureaucratic hiccup. Yet the pattern here recurs across public institutions in India: officials conduct an investigation, record findings, then deny access to the very citizen whom the file concerns. Genuine unavailability rarely explains these refusals. Reflexive, boilerplate denials that don’t match the department’s own files explain them far more often.

This is exactly why the RTI Act includes penal provisions under Section 20(1) for officers who withhold data without reasonable cause. It’s also why second appeals before Information Commissions exist, as a check against this kind of institutional evasiveness.

Conclusion: Ending the Cycle of Cryptic Investigation and Wrong Suggestion in Cyber Fraud

Transparency laws work only when public authorities engage honestly with what they already know. A department’s own paperwork can name the officers who conducted an investigation, yet its RTI reply can still insist no such record exists. That gap isn’t a shortage of information — it’s a shortage of accountability. This pattern of cryptic investigation and wrong suggestion in cyber fraud cases erodes public trust in grievance-redressal systems generally. Cases like this remind us where the burden lies: public authorities must prove genuine unavailability. Citizens pursuing their statutory rights deserve more than a closed file and a shrug.

Here are the official web links for each authority involved in your case — apologies for missing these earlier:

Web Links / Portals of Concerned Public Authorities (Cryptic Investigation & Wrong Suggestion in Cyber Fraud)

Authority	Official Web Link
Uttar Pradesh Information Commission (UPIC) — where your Second Appeal A-20260601938 is pending	http://upic.gov.in
RTI Online Portal, UP — for filing RTI applications/First Appeals to UP Govt. departments	https://rtionline.up.gov.in
IGRS / Jansunwai Portal, UP — where your grievance (Ref. 60000260000007) was registered and tracked	http://jansunwai.up.nic.in
CPGRAMS (Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, Govt. of India) — where Grievance Nos. MINHA/E/2025/0018101 and MINHA/E/2025/0030992 were filed with MHA	https://pgportal.gov.in
UP State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission — the forum the police suggested you approach	http://scdrc.up.nic.in
Office of the Superintendent of Police, Mirzapur (Public Authority/Respondent — CPIO & FAA)	No independent website found; correspondence routes through the SP Mirzapur office email (spmzr-up@nic.in) and the UP Police portal, uppolice.gov.in