JAYANT AVASHIYA Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this common order, Miscellaneous Criminal Case No. 4811/2004, 4812/2004 and 4813/2004 (Jayant Avashiya v. State of M.P.) are also being disposed of because the parties in the aforesaid cases are the same and the question of sanction raised by the petitioner is also the same.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner vehemently submitted that though the petitioner has retired and on the date of taking cognizance by the learned Court below he was not a public servant, but, the act for which he is now being prosecuted, is said to have been committed in the discharge of his official duty when he was a public servant. Therefore, the sanction, for taking cognizance, from the competent authority is essential. Learned counsel has placed reliance on a Supreme Court judgment passed in the case of State of Orissa andothers v. Ganeshchandra (AIR 2004 SC 2179).

(3.) IN the case on hand, the petitioner is not being prosecuted for any other offence than the offence enumerated under the prevention of Corruption Act. For the prosecution of a public servant for the offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, provision of section 19 would apply for taking sanction and that provision would apply only when the public servant who is being prosecuted is under the employment. If the prosecution is launched, after retirement or superannuation of a public servant, there is no necessity of sanction as per provision under section 19 of the Act. This legal position has been settled by the Supreme Court long back in the judgment of Venkataraman's case (AIR 1958 SC 107) followed in the case of C.R. Bansi v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1971 SC 786) and again in the case of Habibulla Khan v. State of Orissa and another [1995 (2) JT 1].