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Judgment
This revision has been filed by the Loyayukta Organization against the order dated 12.01.2016 passed by Special Judge, (P.C. Act) in Special Case No. 03 of 2015. By the impugned order, the trial court has held that the respondent can not be prosecuted for commission offence punishable under Sections 7, 13 (1) (d) and Section 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 because there is no valid sanction to prosecute the respondent.
At the relevant time the respondent was working as Cooperative Inspector. His appointing authority was Commissioner, Cooperative and Registrar, Cooperative Societies. The order of grant of sanction to prosecute the respondent dated 14.01.2015 has been passed by the Under Secretary, State of M.P., Cooperative Department. It is mentioned in the order that the respondent was posted as Inspector, Cooperative Societies in the office of Assistant Registrar, Cooperative Societies, district Rewa at the relevant time.
The complainant, Mamta Shrivastava made a complaint that the respondent had made a demand of Rs.2500/- as bribe for the purpose of audit of the Cooperative Society in which the complainant was the President. A trap was organized and the respondent was caught raid handed. The Lokayukta Organization had filed the charge sheet against the respondent.
Alongwith the case photocopy of the record for grant of sanction has been filed. As per record, the competent authority i.e. the Commissioner, Cooperative Societies or Registrar, Cooperative Society has not applied its mind to grant sanction.
On behalf of the Lokayukta Organization, Mr. Vidhya Wardhi, Inspector, Sub Inspector Establishment filed his affidavit before the trial court. He has mentioned in the affidavit that the decision to grant sanction was taken by the State Government and the order has been signed by the Deputy Secretary, Shri Prakash Khare. However, there is no record to show that the Registrar, Cooperative Society has applied his mind before grant of sanction, neither order has been passed by him.
The Apex Court in CBI Vs. Ashok Kumar Aggarwal, reported in (2014) 14 SCC 295 has held that the sanction to prosecute an employee has to be granted by the competent authority after applying its mind and after perusal of the record. The Apex Court has held as under :-
"16. In view of the above, the legal propositions can be summarised as under: -
16.1 The prosecution must send the entire relevant record to the sanctioning authority including the FIR, disclosure statements, statements of witnesses, recovery memos, draft charge sheet and all other relevant material. The record so sent should also contain the material/document, if any, which may tilt the balance in favour of the accused and on the basis of which, the competent authority may refuse sanction.
16.2 The authority itself has to do complete and conscious scrutiny of the whole record so produced by the prosecution independently applying its mind and taking into consideration all the relevant facts before grant of sanction while discharging its duty to give or withhold the sanction.
16.3 The power to grant sanction is to be exercised strictly keeping in mind the public interest and the protection available to the accused against whom the sanction is sought.
16.4 The order of sanction should make it evident that the authority had been aware of all relevant facts/materials and had applied its mind to all the relevant material.
16.5 In every individual case, the prosecution has to establish and satisfy the court by leading evidence that the entire relevant facts had been placed before the sanctioning authority and the authority had applied its mind on the same and that the sanction had been granted in accordance with law."
In the present case the competent authority has not applied its mind neither perused the record, hence, in our opinion, the trial court has right held that there was no valid sanction, hence, the respondent cannot be prosecuted. Consequently, we do not find any merit in this revision petition. However, the department is at liberty to take decision in the matter of granting proper sanction in the case of respondent in accordance with law.
The criminal revision is disposed of with the aforesaid observation.