The court held that prior approval for investigation under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act is unnecessary in cases involving direct allegations of corrupt conduct by public officials.

JUDGMENT :

Bibek Chaudhuri, J.

1. The Petitioner is an officer of East Central Railway. On the allegation that the petitioner along with other officers and members and staffs of East Central Railway have illegal nexus with one Nawal Kishor Ladha, Director of Ms. Abha Agro Industries Private Limited having its office at Om Tower, 32 Jawahar Lal Nehru Road, 12^th Floor, Kolkata – 700071 and the petitioner in collusion and conspiracy with said company and other officers and members of staff of East Central Railway used to give undue advantage to the said company by reservation of out of turn railway rakes accepting illegal gratification. The said information was received by the CBI officers, Patna. It was alleged that the said Nawal Kishore Ladha as and when required pursued his emergent requirement of railway rakes and other allied issues to the petitioner along with one Sanjay Kumar, Rupesh Kumar (petitioner), Sachin Mishra and others being officers and employees of East Central Railways and in lieu of making railway rakes available under emergent circumstances, the petitioner had received Rs. 4 lakhs on 24^th of May, 2022 and Rs. 6 lakhs on 27^th of June, 2022. The CBI got the information that on 16^th of July, 2022, Nawal Kishore Ladha instructed his brother Manoj Ladha to send Rs. 10 lakhs to be paid to different persons as illegal gratification at Patna, Samastipur and Hajipur. On 30^th of July, 2022, Nawal Kishore Ladha again directed Manoj Ladha and Bajrang Ladha to send Rs. 23.5 lakhs to Patna, Sonepur and Samastipur in different envelopes, each containing Rs. 6 lakhs, Rs. 6 lakhs, Rs. 5 lakhs, Rs. 3 lakhs, Rs. 2.75 lakhs, Rs. 50,000/- and Rs. 25,000/- to be delivered to different officers of East Central Railway. Manoj Ladha told his driver Manoj Saha to go to Patna with the aforesaid money, contained in different envelopes in a packet to deliver the same to different persons including Rupesh Kumar (petitioner).

2. In order to work out the said information, the CBI constituted a trap time, comprising of the officers of CBI and two independent witnesses namely, Afsar Aquil and Jai Shankar Prasad Singh. After pre-trap brief, the trap team conducted vigil on Patliputra Rail Parisar, Digha, Patna from 10 a.m. on 31^st of July, 2022. At about 12.30 pm., one XUV500 car, bearing Registration No. WB60S0222 reached Patliputra Rail Parisar. The driver got down from the car with a gray coloured bag and entered into the premises of Patliputra Rail Parisar, Digha Patna. The trap team was awaiting outside and as soon as Manoj Kumar Saha came out of the premises, he was apprehended outside the gate. On being asked, he disclosed that he delivered bribe money of Rs. 6 lakhs in a yellow bag to Sanjay Kumar CFTM at his residential premises located at Flat No. 502 B, 5^th Floor, B Block Patliputra Railway Parisar, Digha Patna. The trap team immediately went to the residence of Sanjay Kumar and apprehended him on the charge of accepting Rs. 6 lakhs as bribe. The said Sanjay Kumar admitted acceptance of money and handed over the said yellow bag to the CBI officer Incharge of trap. He was arrested and the money was seized under proper seizure list at the spot. A case was instituted against Sanjay Kumar under Section 7 read with Section 13 (1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and CBI submitted charge- sheet against him on 29^th of September, 2022 while keeping further investigation open. Subsequently thereto, a supplementary charge-sheet was filed on 30^th of May, 2023. The CBI also obtained sanction for prosecution vide order, dated 12^th of July, 2023 and it was submitted before the trial court. In the charge-sheet, it is also stated that after apprehending Sanjay Kumar, the gray coloured bag of Manoj Kumar