Prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act is limited to investigations involving recommendations or decisions made by a public servant in their official capacity; it does not apply to criminal acts like misappropriation, embezzlement, or forgery which lack a nexus to official discretion.

ORDER :

A. BADHARUDEEN, J.

1. This Criminal Miscellaneous Case has been filed under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, by the petitioner, who is the 1^st accused in Crime No.V.C. 04/KNR/2025 of VACB, Kannur, seeking the following reliefs:

“i) To set aside Annexure II FIR, and Annexure III prosecution sanction order as unjust, illegal and arbitrary;

ii) To declare that the petitioner is not liable to be prosecuted based on Annexure II FIR, and Annexure III prosecution sanction order;

iii) To direct the respondents to refrain from proceeding against the petitioner on the basis of Annexure II FIR, and Annexure III prosecution sanction order;

iv) To pass such other order which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper considering the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case in the interest of justice.

v) To dispense with the filing of the translation of vernacular documents.”

2. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Public Prosecutor, in detail. Perused relevant materials available.

3. In this matter, the prosecution allegation as per the FIR is that, during two separate terms upto the year 2024, the petitioner/1^st accused, who has been working as Secretary of Neerveli Women Co-operative Society, hatched criminal conspiracy with accused Nos.2 to 14, who were the members of the Governing Committee, to obtain unlawful financial gain by sanctioning fake and benami loans in the names of Rama K (the complainant herein) and Sheeba M.K, who were working as collection agents and in the names of their relatives, instead of granting the same to the actual borrowers and thereby caused huge financial loss to the Society. It is further alleged that, the accused also misappropriated money from fixed deposits, without the knowledge of the depositors by forging their signatures and creating forged documents and thereby committed criminal breach of trust and cheating against the depositors. On this premise, the prosecution alleges commission of offences punishable under Sections 13(1)(c) and 13(1)(d) read with 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Amendment Act, 1988 [hereinafter referred as ‘P.C. Act’ for short] and under Sections 409, 475, 471 and 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code [hereinafter referred as ‘IPC’ for short], by the accused.

4. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner, none of the offences would attract against the petitioner/1^st accused and the registration of FIR against her and other accused is unsustainable. Therefore, Annexure-II FIR is liable to be quashed. He also submitted that, Annexure-III prior approval issued under Section 17A of the P.C. Act was not issued by the competent authority. Therefore, the very enquiry and registration of Annexure-II FIR are illegal and the prayers sought for in this petition are liable to be allowed.

5. Repelling the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the learned Public Prosecutor would submit that, in this case, the allegation of the prosecution is misappropriation of funds and for which, prior approval under Section 17A of the P.C. Act as amended, is not necessary. Therefore, mere issuance of Annexure-III would not take away the power of the Investigating Officer to register FIR and investigate into the allegations. The learned Public Prosecutor has placed decisions of this Court viz. Jayaprakash v. State of Kerala [2022 (1) KLT 126] and Shankara Bhat and Others v. State of Kerala and Others [2021 (5) KHC 248 : 2021 (2) KLD 367] in support of his contentions.

6. In view of the rival contentions, the questions to be decided are (1) which are the cases where prior approval under Sect