Delhi topped the list of 19 metropolitan cities in the number of cognisable offences, registering over 2.7 lakh cases, with the charge-sheeting rate being the lowest, according to the NCRB's 'Crime in India 2024'.

According to the data, Delhi has nearly five times the number of cases registered in comparison to Mumbai and over seven times those in Bengaluru. The city's crime density is so high that the rate of cognisable crimes stood at 1,688 per lakh population -- the highest among all metropolitan cities in the country.

The national capital recorded 2,75,402 cognisable offences in 2024, the data showed.

Beneath the sheer volume of crime, the charge-sheeting rate, a measure of how often police actually file charges to initiate prosecution, stood at just 31.9 per cent -- the lowest among all metro cities in the report.

However, the data showed that in Delhi, the number of cognisable offences is down from the past two years, where in 2022, the number of cognisable offences recorded was 2,98,988, and in 2023, it was 3,23,549.

The data suggests that there was a 14.8 per cent decline in these serious crimes where police can arrest the accused without a warrant and initiate investigations without a magistrate's permission.

According to the NCRB data, 19 Metropolitan cities with a population of more than 20 lakh include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune and Surat.

Delhi's population, anchored to the 2011 census figure of 1.63 crore, has only grown since.

Published on May 7, 2026