The Hindu : New Delhi News : Prior sanction must for prosecution of public servants: Court

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Friday, Sep 08, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Prior sanction must for prosecution of public servants: Court

J. Venkatesan

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. 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.

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.

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.

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