Authors : Sharuv Sharma
DOI : 10.5281/zenodo.23183864
Volume : 8
Issue : 4
Year : 2026
Page No : 7142-7169
The rapid expansion of internet access and digital platforms in India has been accompanied by a marked rise in cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent offences, ranging from financial fraud and hacking to cyberstalking, sextortion, and online child sexual exploitation. While Indian criminal law has responded through the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and special statutes such as the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, these instruments remain largely silent on the psychological mechanisms that produce offending and victimisation in digital environments. This article undertakes a psycho-legal analysis of cybercrime in India by integrating cyberpsychological theory including the online disinhibition effect, space transition theory, routine activity theory, and social learning theory with doctrinal analysis of criminal responsibility. It examines offender typologies and personality correlates associated with hacking, online fraud, cyberstalking, and grooming; the psychological and social dimensions of victimisation, with particular attention to women, children, and the elderly; and the adequacy of India's mens rea framework, insanity defence, and juvenile justice provisions in accommodating psychological understandings of digital offending. Drawing on statutory provisions, landmark judicial decisions, and empirical literature, the article argues that Indian cyber-criminal law continues to rely on offline conceptions of intention and capacity that inadequately capture disinhibited, compulsive, and identity-fluid online conduct, and it concludes with recommendations for integrating forensic psychological assessment, victim- centred procedure, and graduated culpability standards into India's cyber- criminal justice framework.