Forensic Accounting: An Emerging Weapon to Curb White-Collar Crime: A Study on Indian Corporate Sector

Today white-collar crime is a pervasive phenomenon of fraud in the corporate world. To unearth and curb the incidence of white-collar frauds in business, ideas are being drawn from various forensic sciences to supplement the thought process of accountants and auditors. Forensic accounting is a rapidly developing area of specialization primarily concerned with fraud deterrence, fraud detection and fraud investigation. The present study is focused on the nature and extent of white-collar crime and seeks to explore the need for corporate fraud prevention. An empirical study based on primary data was conducted by means of survey questionnaire and the responses were statistically analysed through frequency chi square test (independence of attributes). In order to cleanse the corporate sector from white-collar criminal behaviour and to ensure mainstream adoption of forensic accounting in India, a change in mind-set and robust infrastructure development are required.