Two years on, Mumbai I-T dept. yet to get forensic lab

Two years after it was mooted, the Income Tax Department is yet to get the international-standard forensic laboratory it was promised in the city.

Senior I-T officials said after the proposal for a lab each in Mumbai and New Delhi was made in February 2016, the national capital already has a basic one in operation. The proposal for the Mumbai lab, though, remains in an ‘advanced stage’ of processing.

The lab is intended to function under the I-T department’s Investigation Wing, which is authorised under the Income-Tax Act, 1961 to investigate individuals under section 131, and conduct survey and search operations under sections 132 and 133A. It will help I-T officials crack passwords, do mathematical hashing, recover files and identify file signatures.

Urgent need for lab

Senior I-T officials said the need for a forensic lab is urgent, as most of the data is in digital format. The digital data is not only easy to modify in the event of a search or survey, but is also mostly encrypted for protection.

They said plans for the lab in Mumbai has been held up due to lack of manpower and technical expertise. An official said, “The lab is needed for assessing backdated forging of documents, and to track cloning of hard disks. Somehow, we haven’t been able to take the proposal beyond an advanced stage of processing, while Delhi has already put basic infrastructure in place.”

Before proposing a lab, the department had called for presentations by leading forensic tools makers.