- (1.) By means of instant writ petition, the petitioner, who is presently occupying the office of Inspector General of Police has approached this Court feeling aggrieved by an order, whereby his application seeking sanction for prosecution of Mr. Arvind Kumar presently posted as Principal Secretary (Home) Government of U.P under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code (in short ''Cr.P.C.) has been rejected.
(2.) Brief facts of this case are that the petitioner had filed a complaint under Section 190 Cr.P.C in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow, stating that his services are governed by THE ALL INDIA SERVICES (PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL REPORT) RULES, 2007 and in accordance with Rule 9 of the said Rules, the respondent no.2 reported on the petitioner's Performance Appraisal Report for the period 01.04.2017 to 26.10.2017 in his official capacity as Reviewing Authority. The Review Officer (opposite party no.2) while giving assessment on Performance Appraisal Report had made remarks that "In my view the reporting officer has been extremely liberal in writing his pen picture and in numerical assessment. A uniformed officer needs to follow certain norms and discipline of the service. The general impression about the officer is that he is extremely litigacious and on many occasions has created embarrassing situations for the government."
(3.) According to the petitioner, the allegations made in the aforesaid complaint comes under the category of offence of defamation and, therefore, in order to obtain prosecution sanction under Section 197 of Cr.P.C., the petitioner has moved an application on 10.01.2019 before the Principal Secretary (Appointments) along with the complaint preferred before the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow, which has been rejected by the State Government and the petitioner came to know about the said fact, when the aforesaid complaint was rejected by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, vide order dated 24.03.2019, solely on the ground that the application moved for prosecution sanction has been declined by the State Government.;