Cyber crime complaint status 'pending'? How to track an NCRP complaint and what to do next

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NCRP is the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, and your 14-digit acknowledgement number is the key to your complaint. Here is where it comes from, how to track it on cybercrime.gov.in, what "pending" does and doesn't mean, and how to escalate.

01 / NCRP full form and your acknowledgement number

NCRP stands for the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, the Home Ministry's complaint website at cybercrime.gov.in. The ministry's January 2026 Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the portal says it was launched in August 2019 and later widened to take every type of cybercrime, including financial fraud.

A complaint you can track gets an acknowledgement number. The portal's FAQ says that if you file through Report and Track or Report Other Cybercrime, you receive an SMS and an email with a complaint reference number on your registered mobile number and email address. The FAQ calls it a complaint reference number in that answer and an acknowledgement number in the next one, which says you use it to track the complaint. The FAQ adds that a confirmation message also appears on the portal when you submit.

• How many digits: 14. The SOP says so, and the portal's tracking box accepts exactly 14 digits, numbers only.
• First digit: 2 for a complaint filed on the portal and 3 for one made by phone to the 1930 helpline, according to the SOP.
• Who sends it: the SOP says the SMS comes from a sender header written as "XXNCRP", where XX is a State code.
• Called 1930? The SOP says that SMS asks you to add the full details of the fraud on cybercrime.gov.in using the number. Do this: a phone ticket on its own is thin.
• Reported anonymously? The FAQ offers status checks only for Report and Track and Report Other Cybercrime complaints, so you cannot track an anonymous report.

02 / How to check your NCRP complaint status, step by step

• Step 1: Open cybercrime.gov.in and click Track your Complaint in the top menu, or go straight to the tracking page.
• Step 2: Type your 14-digit number in the Acknowledgement No. box and click Get OTP.
• Step 3: Enter the 6-digit OTP when it arrives, then the captcha, and click Submit.
• Step 4: Take a screenshot of the result, with the date, every time you check.

The FAQ also describes checking the status by logging in to the portal and choosing its check-status option. The tracking page does not say which phone the OTP goes to. If it never arrives, ask the police station that has your complaint (see section 06) for the status instead.

Nobody needs your OTP to check your status for you. If someone offers to "check" or "speed up" your complaint and asks for the OTP or a fee, do not give either.

03 / What happens behind the status screen

NCRP is mainly a system for taking in complaints and passing them on. The portal's FAQ says complaints are handled by the police of the state or UT you select. The Home Ministry told Parliament in July 2026 that turning complaints into FIRs, arrests and chargesheets is the job of state police.

For financial fraud, the SOP sets out this sequence:

• Your complaint goes to the state and district nodal officers and to the police station concerned.
• A police officer checks that it is a cyber-enabled financial crime and submits it to the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS).
• Notices go to every bank and intermediary on the money trail, telling them to put the reported amount on hold. If the money has already left the banking system, for example as an ATM withdrawal or a crypto purchase, the exit is recorded instead.
• If an amount is held, you should get an SMS and email with a link explaining how release works.
• Where money is to be returned, an FIR or e-FIR may be registered.

04 / What "pending" and the other statuses mean

Be careful here. The portal's FAQ does not explain the status labels, and we found no official glossary from the Home Ministry or I4C, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre. Anyone who gives you a precise official meaning for "pending" or "under process" is going beyond what has been published.

What the official documents do say is who holds your complaint. The SOP says it is forwarded to the State and District nodal officers and the police station concerned. The FAQ says it is handled by the police of the State or UT you selected. Whatever the label says, the complaint is with that State or UT's police, and the next step is theirs.

Legal-help sites give working explanations, which you should treat as informal:

• Pending, under process or assigned: generally read as the complaint having been routed and waiting for police action.
• FIR registered: an FIR number exists. An NCRP complaint on its own is not an FIR, with one exception: in 18 States and UTs, the Home Ministry told the Lok Sabha in July 2026, a money-fraud complaint above the loss threshold the State or UT sets is registered automatically as an e-Zero FIR, and you must visit the cyber police station within three days to make it a regular FIR. Where e-Zero FIR works.
• Closed or disposed: RTI Wiki, a legal-help site, says this usually marks the handover to police, not a ruling that nothing happened. It does not stop you seeking an FIR.

The most useful signal is the hold message from the bank or portal, because that tells you money has actually been frozen.

05 / If money is on hold

Held money does not come back to you automatically. You have to apply, either online through the Home Ministry's Money Restoration Module or through a court. Our guide Money on hold after a 1930 complaint explains both routes.

The SOP also says plainly that if the account your money went to is empty, or holds less than the disputed amount, the bank is not expected to repay you from it. What stays traceable depends on how fast you reported, which is why the first hour matters so much.

06 / Status still pending? How to escalate

• Find out which police station has it. The SOP says the 1930 helpline is run by the State and UT police, so you can call 1930 with your acknowledgement number and ask which police station or cyber cell your complaint was sent to. The government describes 1930 as a helpline for help in lodging complaints, so it may not be able to tell you; if it cannot, move to the next step.
• Visit that station with a printout of the acknowledgement and your evidence. Hand in a short written application asking for the status and, for a cognizable offence such as cheating that tricks you into handing over money (Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), registration of an FIR. Get a stamped copy as your receipt.
• Write to your State's nodal officer or grievance officer. The portal's Contact Us page, State/UT Nodal Officer and Grievance Officer contact details, lists nodal and grievance officer contacts for every State and UT. Its note says complainants who registered with the "Report & Track" option may contact them if the response has not been appropriate. Email addresses on that page are written with [at], [dot] and [hyphen]; type @, a full stop and a hyphen instead. Give your acknowledgement number, the date you filed, what you have done since, and your screenshots. Our contacts by State and UT are taken from the same list.
• Write to the Superintendent of Police (or the DCP Cyber in a commissionerate). Section 173(4) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) lets a person whose information was refused by the officer in charge of a police station send it in writing, by post, to the SP. If that fails, the same section allows an application to a Magistrate.
• File an RTI with the police district asking what action was taken and where the complaint was sent. Details of a live investigation can be withheld.
• Keep the bank route running alongside: a written complaint to your bank, then the RBI Ombudsman. See our money recovery guide.

Do not confuse this with the Grievance Redressal Module. The Home Ministry says that module, working since April 2026, handles grievances about frozen bank accounts and amounts marked with a lien. It is for account holders whose money was stopped, not for victims chasing a complaint.

If the case is large or complicated, consider consulting a lawyer before you go to a Magistrate.

07 / Can I withdraw a complaint?

Sometimes, and only early. The portal's FAQ says a complaint filed under Report Cyber Crime can be withdrawn before it is converted into an FIR. A complaint filed under Report Women/Child Related Crime cannot be withdrawn.

The FAQ does not say how to withdraw. Find out which police station has your complaint (see section 06), and make the request there in writing, quoting your acknowledgement number. Keep a stamped copy. If your complaint led to a hold on money, ask the police what withdrawing would mean for that hold before you go ahead.

Once an FIR is registered, the FAQ's withdrawal option no longer applies. A case can then be settled if the law allows the offence to be "compounded". Under the BNSS, the parties can compound only the offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) that are listed in Section 359, which also says who can compound each one:

• Cheating (Section 318(2) of the BNS) can be compounded by the person cheated.
• Cheating that dishonestly induces someone to hand over property, such as money (Section 318(4)), can be compounded by the person cheated, but only with the permission of the court where the case is pending.
• Under Section 359, a BNS offence that is not on those lists cannot be compounded.

Section 359 covers only offences under the BNS. An FIR may also include charges under other laws, such as the Information Technology (IT) Act, and Section 359 does not cover those. Other legal routes, and other laws such as the IT Act, have their own rules: speak to a lawyer before you agree to any settlement.

Do not pay anyone who calls, messages or emails offering to "withdraw", "close" or "settle" a complaint or a case for a fee, whoever they say they are.

08 / Your checklist

• Keep the 14-digit acknowledgement number and the SMS it came in. It starts with 2 if you filed online and 3 if you called 1930.
• If you called 1930, add the full details on cybercrime.gov.in using that number.
• Track it: Track your Complaint, then the number, Get OTP, the OTP and captcha, and Submit. Screenshot each check.
• Never give your OTP to anyone who offers to check your status.
• Look out for a separate hold SMS or email.
• Still pending? Find out which station has the case and follow up in writing, then write to your State's nodal or grievance officer.
• If you are refused, write to the SP under Section 173(4) BNSS.
• Pursue your bank complaint at the same time.
• Want to withdraw? That is possible only for a Report Cyber Crime complaint, and only before it becomes an FIR.
• Never pay anyone who offers to "speed up" your status, or to "withdraw" or "close" a case.

09 / Sources and updates

Confirmed (official documents): the portal's FAQ, tracking page and Contact Us list of State/UT nodal and grievance officers, the Home Ministry SOP of 2 January 2026, the Home Ministry's Lok Sabha reply of 28 July 2026, and the text of the BNSS. The 14-digit length comes from the SOP and matches the portal's tracking box. Reported (legal-help sites, informal): the working meanings of status labels in section 04, from RTI Wiki and JuriGram. We found no official glossary of the labels.

Update, 3 October 2026: new section 01 gives NCRP's full form and explains the acknowledgement number: 14 digits, starting with 2 or 3, sent by SMS and email, from the SOP, the portal's FAQ and its tracking page. Section 02 now walks through the tracking page step by step. We removed the line saying the tracking OTP goes to your registered mobile, because the tracking page does not say where it is sent. Section 06 now adds the portal's list of State/UT nodal and grievance officers, says that the government describes 1930 as a helpline for lodging complaints, and explains that the Grievance Redressal Module is for frozen accounts, not for chasing a complaint. Sections have been renumbered.

Update, 2 October 2026: a new section explains when a complaint can be withdrawn, from the portal's FAQ, and how compounding under Section 359 of the BNSS works once there is an FIR. The checklist now also warns against paying anyone to withdraw or close a case. The escalation section now gives cheating under Section 318(4) of the BNS as its example of a cognizable offence, because cheating under Section 318(2) is non-cognizable. The status-labels section now notes that in 18 States and UTs a complaint above the State's loss threshold becomes an e-Zero FIR automatically, from the Home Ministry's Lok Sabha answer of 28 July 2026.