- (1.) When the corruption is so rampant and widespread, how the law relating to sanction for prosecution under Section 19 of the Prevent of Corruption Act, 1988 has to be viewed and when judiciary is viewed as a savior to prevent such malpractices and expedite the trial of corrupt public servants, what should be the touch stone for the courts, is the never ending debate in such cases and the present three writ petitions fall in the same arena. Luckily, summarizing the legal position culled out from various precedents of the Apex Court on this issue, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in a recent judgment of 28th may, 2013 in the case of State of Maharashtra through CBI v. Mahesh G. Jain, 2013 3 RCR(Cri) 263summarized the legal position and the following principles to be applied in such cases relating to sanction for prosecution of corrupt public servants. These principles are enumerated in para. 13 of the aid judgment as under:- 13. From the aforesaid authorities the following principles can be culled out:- a) It is incumbent on the prosecution to prove that the valid sanction has been granted by the sanctioning authority after being satisfied that a case for sanction has been made out. b) The sanction order may expressly show that the sanctioning authority has perused the material placed before him and, after consideration of the circumstances, has granted sanction for, prosecution. c) The prosecution may prove by adducing the evidence that the material was placed before the sanctioning authority and his satisfaction was arrived at upon perusal of the material placed before him. d) Grant of sanction is only an administrative function and the sanctioning authority is required to prima facie reach the satisfaction that relevant facts would constitute the offence. e) The adequacy of material placed before the sanctioning authority cannot be gone into by the court as it does not sit in appeal over the sanction order. f) If the sanctioning authority has perused all the materials placed before him and some of them have not been proved that would not vitiate the order of sanction. g) The order of sanction is a pre-requisite as it is intended to provide a safeguard to public servant against frivolous and vexatious litigants, but simultaneously an order of sanction should not be construed in a pedantic manner and there should not be a hyper-technical approach to test its validity.
(2.) In the backdrop of aforesaid legal position, for the brief factual matrix of the three writ petitions, the facts illustratively are taken from SBCWP No. 2394/2001 - Satya Narain v. State of Raj. & Ors. are found opportune.
(3.) The petitioner - Satya Narain, who is an Upper Division Clerk in the Urban Improvement Trust, Bhilwara for quashing the FIR No. 146/98 dated 28/8/1998 and ACB report, filed the present writ petition in this Court on 22/6/2001, even prior to the sanction for prosecution against him. An FIR was lodged against the petitioner Satya Narain and other two petitioners; Rikhab Chand and Hari Shanker on the ground of giving false affidavits to their employer Urban Improvement Trust, Bhilwara that they did not have any plot of land allotted to them on concessional rates and on the basis of this false affidavits, they secured another allotment from the UIT, Bhilwara on concessional rates and, therefore, offence under Section 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of against them. After investigation, before filing of challan before the competent court, the sanction for prosecution was sought as required by Section 19 of the said Act, 1988 vide ACB report Annex. 9 by the Superintendent of Police, ACB, Ajmer. The case of prosecution was that the petitioner Satya Narain had taken in auction a plot No. 332 B/A, Shastri Nagar, Bhilwara at Rs. 16,400/- on 13/12/1983 and taking a loan from respondent UIT, Bhilwara, he constructed a house thereon. By filing the affidavit before the UIT, Bhilwara on 22/5/1989 that he did not have any plot of land allotted to him by the UIT at concessional rate, again on 25/5/1989. the said petitioner was allotted plot No. 1-B-5 admeasuring 213.33 sq.ft. in Ramesh Chand Vyas Nagar Scheme of UIT, Bhilwara at concessional rate of Rs. 25,600/-. The explanation of the petitioner before the Investigating Officer was that since he had already entered into an agreement to sell the previous house situated on plot No. 332 B/A Shastri Nagar Scheme for Rs. 16,000/- in favour of his son Dilip Kumar and mother-in-law Rishi Bai on 25/5/1989 and setting off the cash advance of Rs. 40,000/- taken from them during the construction of said house, the remaining amount of Rs. 20,000/- was to be paid in two installments on 15/12/1989 and 1/3/1990, therefore, at the time of subsequent allotment of plot No. 1-B-5 in Ramesh Chand Vyas Nagar Scheme, he did not have any plot in his name or in the name of his dependents. This explanation was not accepted and the ACES recommended prosecution of the petitioner under Section 13(1)(d) & 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 read with Section 420 and 120B IPC and sought sanction for prosecution from the competent authority of the State Government. The petitioner filed the aforesaid writ petition before this Court and by an interim order of the coordinate bench dated 14/8/2001 it was directed that no adverse action be taken against the petitioner on the basis of the complaint filed against him.;