The sanctioning authority must apply its mind to the entirety of the facts available on record before passing an order of prosecution sanction.

JUDGMENT

1. The petitioner herein has approached this Court by way of the instant writ petition seeking to invoke extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for assailing the order dated 04.11.2016 (Annexure-11) whereby, the sanction to prosecute the petitioner for offences under Sections 13 (l)(d), 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and under Sections 467, 468, 471, 420 & 120-B of the IPC was granted.

2. The petitioner was a Patwari, Colonization Department at the relevant point of time. The FIR No.218/2008 came to be registered at the ACB, Jaisalmer, Head Quarter Jaipur with an allegation that while working as a Patwari, the petitioner gave fabricated/fraudulent reports in relation to the land in question by concealing material facts and thereby facilitating allotment of land to disentitled persons. Acting in furtherance of the fabricated/fraudulent reports prepared by the petitioner, pattas were issued by the concerned authorities, which caused wrongful loss to the Government.

3. Shri D.S. Sodha, Advocate representing the petitioner places reliance on the following judgments:

1. State of Karnataka v. Ameerjan reported in (2007) 11 SCC 273

2. State of Maharashtra through CBI v. Mahesh G. Jain, reported in (2013) 8 SCC 119

3. Mansukhlal Vithaldas Chauhan v. State of Gujarat, reported in (1997) 7 SCC 622

4. Central Bureau of Investigation v. Ashok Kumar Aggarwal, reported in (2014) 14 SCC 295

5. Ganga Ram v. State of Rajasthan & Ors., reported in (2016) 1 WLC 58

6. Abdul Aziz Gauri vs State of Rajasthan : D.B. Special Appeal Writ No.1231/2014, decided on 27.10.2015 and has urged that the order of sanction suffers from gross non-application of mind and thus, the same deserves to be quashed.

4. Learned counsel for the respondents Shri Anil Bissa and Shri D.K. Joshi, on the other hand vehemently and fervently opposed the submissions of Shri Sodha and urged that the order granting sanction is a well reasoned order and the satisfaction has been recorded by the sanctioning authority after due consideration of the material collected by the investigating agency and hence, no interference is called for in the impugned order (Annexure-11) while exercising extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court.

5. I have given my thoughtful consideration to the submissions advanced at bar and have gone through the material available on record.

6. Suffice it to state that there is no quarrel/dissension regarding the proposition laid down in the judgments relied upon by Shri Sodha that the sanctioning authority must apply its mind to the entirety of the facts available on record before passing an order of prosecution sanction. In the present case, the sanctioning authority, recorded the following reasons for granting sanction to prosecute the petitioner for the offences under Sections 13(l)(d), 13 (2) of the P.C. Act, 1988 and under Sections 467, 468, 471, 420 & 120B of the IPC:-

7. It may be mentioned here that this sanction order takes note of the fact that sanction to prosecute the concerned Sarpanch namely Shivnarayan Chandak, had also been issued by the Panchayati Raj Department, Jaipur.

8. After going through the impugned order of prosecution sanction, I am of the firm opinion that it is an exhaustive order and there is no ground to hold that the same was passed without due application to the facts of the case, or without referring to the evidence collected by the investigating agency. There is positive evidence available on record of the case to show that the petitioner gave fabricated reports regarding the land in question whereby, wrongful loss was caused to the Government.

9. In view of the above discussion, I am of the opinion that it is not a case fit for warranting exercise of extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court to interfere in the order granting sanction. Thus, the writ petition deserves to be and is hereby dismissed as being devoid of merit.