IMPORTANT POINTS
(1) Illegality may have a bearing on question of prejudice or miscarriage of justice but invalidity of investigation has no relation to competence of court.
(2) For registration of FIR against private individuals for offences punishable under Prevention of Corruption Act and other offences under IPC, committed in course of the same transaction or arising out of same facts, Members of DSPE have all powers and jurisdiction.

JUDGMENT :

B.R. GAVAI, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. All these appeals challenge the common judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge of the Allahabad High Court dated 14th August 2019. The facts in brief giving rise to the present appeals are as under:-

On 18th October 2007, Coal India Limited had introduced a new policy, whereunder the Fuel Supply Agreement (hereinafter referred to as ‘FSA’) was required to be entered into by coal companies and purchasers of coal. In pursuance of the said policy, on 30th April 2008, an FSA was entered into between the appellants in appeals arising out of SLP (Crl.) Nos. 8342-8346 of 2019 and the Coal India Limited. On 25th March 2011, a joint surprise raid was conducted by the CBI in factory premises of Fertico Marketing and Investment Private Limited and it was found that the coal purchased under the FSA was sold in the black market. It was further found by CBI that this was done in connivance with the unknown government officials which led to loss of Rs. 36.28 crore to the Central Government. Accordingly, on 13th April 2011, an FIR came to be registered by CBI for the offences punishable under Sections 120B and 420 of the IPC and Section 13 (2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the PC Act’) against Mr. Anil Kumar Agarwal, Director of said M/s Fertico Marketing and Investment Pvt. Ltd. and unknown officials of the District Industries Centre (hereinafter referred to as ‘DIC’) District Chandauli, so also unknown officials of Northern Coalfields Limited, Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh.

3. During the course of investigation, it was found that two officers namely Ram Ji Singh, the then General Manager, DIC, Chandauli and Yogendra Nath Pandey, Assistant Manager, DIC, Chandauli were also part of the conspiracy. Investigation revealed that these two officials had abused their official positions and fraudulently and dishonestly sent false status reports regarding working conditions of the accused companies and thereby, dishonestly induced the Northern Coalfields Limited to supply coal on subsidized rates, for obtaining pecuniary advantage.

4. The competent authority granted sanction to prosecute the two public servants on 31st May 2012, under Section 19 of the PC Act. Charge-sheet was filed on 31st May 2012, against the appellants under Section 120B read with Section 420, Sections 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC. Various petitioners approached the High Court by filing petitions under Section 482 Cr.P.C. praying for quashing the charge-sheet/summoning order and consequential proceedings pending before the Special Judge, Anti-Corruption, CBI. The learned Single Judge of the High Court vide his order dated 24th February 2015, framed the following four questions for determination:-

Q. No. 1: Whether the investigation conducted by the CBI in these bunch of cases are illegal and without jurisdiction for non-compliance of section 6 of DSPE Act? If so, its effect?

Q. No. 2: Whether the cases are overwhelmingly and pre-dominantingly of civil nature as purely bases on breach of contract (FSA) and the criminal prosecutions are liable to be quashed?

Q. No. 3: Whether CBI did not follow doctrine of parity in filing the criminal prosecutions against the petitioners? If so, its effect?

Q. No. 4: Whether in absence of Officers/official of NCL, charge of Criminal conspiracy under section 120-B IPC could be made out?

Having framed the aforesaid questions, the learned Single Judge has found in the judgment, that another Single Judge of the said High Court has taken a view, that when the State Government had granted sanction to prosecute an accused, it is implied that the permission for investigation was also granted. The learned Single Judge disagreed with the earlier view taken by another learned Single Judge and was of the view, that since in the present case, investigation conducted by the CBI was without the previous permission/consent of the Government of UP as