Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 — Section 19 — Sanction for prosecution

September 5th, 2013

Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 — Section 19 — Sanction for prosecution — Principles need to be kept in mind, reiterated —

(Para 13)

HELD: 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.

(Para 13)

State of Maharashtra v. Mahesh G. Jain[Bench Strength 2], Criminal Appeal No. 2345/2009(28/05/2013), 2013(5) SLT 323: 2013(7) SCALE 555: 2013(4) Supreme 523: 2013(9) JT 15 [B.S. Chauhan, J.: Dipak Misra, J.]

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