Prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act is only required for offenses relating to public officials' duties; misconduct that constitutes a crime does not benefit from this protection.

JUDGMENT

1. This Criminal Petition, under Sec. 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, 'CrPC'), is filed seeking to quash FIR in crime No.29 of 2021 of C.I.D. P.S., A.P., Amaravathi, Mangalagiri, against the petitioner, who is arrayed as accused No.37, and the consequential order of remand dtd. 10/9/2023, and the Order in Crl.M.P.No.1096 of 2023, dtd. 10/9/2023, passed by the learned Special Judge for SPE & ACB Cases-cum-III Additional District Judge, Vijayawada in the aforesaid crime.

2. Based on a report lodged by the Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (for short, 'APSSDC'), the aforesaid crime was registered by the CID. The allegations, in brief, are as follows. APSSDC was incorporated by virtue of G.O.Ms.No.47 (HE) (EC.A2) Department, dtd. 13/12/2014. SIEMENS offers training programme in collaboration with various State Governments. APSSDC deputed a team to visit SIEMENS Centres of Excellence, which were already established in Gujarat, and to submit a report. During negotiations, State Government agreed to establish SIEMENS Centre of Excellence, Technical Skill Development Institutions and Skill Development Centres in different clusters. Six clusters were formed at the inception at a cost of Rs.546,84,18,908.00, with SIEMENS and Design Tech providing a grant-in-aid of 90% i.e. Rs.491,84,18,908.00 and the Government's share thereof 10% Rs.55,00,00,000.00, and a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was entered into, between the APSSDC and SIEMENS, pursuant to G.O.Ms.no.4, dtd. 30/6/2017 of Skill Development Enterpreneurship and Innovation (Skills) Department. Tax investigation by the Additional Director General, GST, Intelligence, Pune in respect of claims of availing of CENVAT credit by M/s. Design Tech Systems Private Limited and M/s. Skillar Enterprises India Private Limited led to unearthing a huge financial scam involving crores of rupees by M/s. SIEMENS Industry Software India Private Limited and M/s. Design Tech Systems Private Limited, and the funds relate to the APSSDC.

As per the Memorandum of Agreement, Design Tech has to provide training software development including various sub-modules designed for high end software for advance manufacturing CAD/CAM. It does not contemplate sub-contract. However, SIEMENS and Design Tech sub-contracted a large part of its work to M/s. Skiller Enterprises Private Limited, New Delhi with self centric Solomnon's Wisdom. It is the claim of Design Tech that Skiller Enterprises Private Limited provided training software development including various sub-modules designed for high end software for advance manufacturing of CAD/CAM, and royalty and subscription were paid to Skillar as they developed the software. M/s. Skiller directly supplied the same to the Skill Development Centers in Andhra Pradesh.

When the tax authorities confronted Skillar, it claimed that no technical work was sub-contracted and the training software development including various submodules provided are technical material and royalty and subscription were wrongly mentioned in invoices. A.D.G.G.I., Pune concluded that both service provider and service receiver took contradictory stands regarding the nature of service, and in depth scrutiny into the records by A.D.G.G.I. revealed that training development software including various sub-modules shown as supplied by Skillar to Design Tech were purchased by Skillar from various companies. The said companies are shell/defunct companies and they were issuing invoices without providing any s