The Hindu : National : Prior sanction must for prosecution of public servants: court

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Thursday, Sep 07, 2006

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Prior sanction must for prosecution of public servants: court

J. Venkatesan

"Position of public servants vulnerable"

NEW DELHI: To prosecute a public servant alleged to have misused his office, prior sanction from the competent authority is necessary.

No court can take cognisance of the chargesheet without the sanction, said senior counsel K.K. Venugopal in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

He was making his submissions before a Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and S.H. Kapdia hearing a batch of appeals filed by the former Punjab Chief Minister, Prakash Singh Badal, and his son Sukhbir Singh, the former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, and the former Kerala Chief Minister, K. Karunakaran, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, challenging the sanction granted for their prosecution by different authorities.

Appearing for Mr. Badal, Mr. Venugopal further submitted that if on the date of taking cognisance of the offence, he/she was a public servant holding a different public office sanction of the competent authority of the subsequent public office was necessary to prosecute him/her.

Sanction must necessarily be obtained from the competent authority prior to taking cognisance by the special judge. Cognisance taken in the absence of sanction was null and void.

Protection for public servants

To a question from the Bench, whether sanction was necessary after a public servant ceased to hold any office, he said the position of public servants, including political leaders, was vulnerable.

"False bribery charge"

To say that sanction was not required would ruin the political career of a person on the basis of a false bribery charge. He would have to face the ignominy of such an insinuation from his political adversary if ultimately the charge was found to be false or motivated by mala fides. Sanction under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act was provided to protect public servants from the harassment of false accusations and malicious prosecution.

Without application of mind

Referring to Mr. Badal, Mr. Venugopal said in this case the sanction by the Speaker of the Punjab Legislative Assembly was given without any application of mind.

The Speaker in his one page order referred to material running into 250 pages combining a large number of allegations without indicating which set of allegations constituted which offence and without indicating which accused was prima facie guilty of which offence.

The sanction by the Speaker was null and void and the special judge could not take cognisance of the case.

Further arguments will continue on Thursday.

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