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Saturday, Jun 09, 2007
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Corruption: quashing of `sanction' clause sought

Legal Corespondent

Petitioner seeks declaration of provision unconstitutional

New Delhi: Within days of the Uttar Pradesh Governor declining to give sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Mayawati, a public interest litigation petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday challenging the constitutional validity of Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, providing for sanction by the competent authority.

In the petition, advocate Manzoor Ali Khan has cited the Centre and all States and Union Territories as respondents.

He said that on June 5, the Governor, on political considerations, refused to grant sanction to prosecute Ms. Mayawati and a Cabinet colleague in the Taj corridor scam. He said that on the directions of the apex court, the Central Vigilance Commission had gone into the Taj case and observed that Ms. Mayawati was directly involved in the project. But the Governor let her and the Cabinet colleague off.

Besides politicians, there were several thousand Central and State Government employees, facing corruption charges, who could not be prosecuted for want of sanction by the competent authority under Section 19 of the Act. As a result, the cases were pending for over 10 to 15 years.

The petitioner said the object of the Act was to prevent corruption. "The existence of Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act per se becomes unreasonable and runs counter to the object of the Act since it could be a tool in the hands of the influential officials to defeat the object of the Act."

He contended that Section 19 was also violative of Article 14 of the Constitution (equality before law) as "it creates a classification which has not reasonable nexus with the object of the Act."

Contending that Section 19 provided unguided and arbitrary power to the competent authority for granting or not granting sanction for prosecution of corrupt and dishonest politicians, he sought a declaration that this provision was unconstitutional.

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