IMPORTANT POINT
The court ruled that prosecution sanction must reflect independent application of mind and cannot be a mere repetition of the draft submitted by the prosecution agency.

ORDER :

(Rekha Borana, J.)

1. The present special appeal has been preferred against the judgment dated 24th May 2023 passed by the learned Single Judge in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.1976 of 2015. By virtue of the writ Court’s this order, the sanction for prosecution granted vide order dated 28th January 2015 by the Collector, Banswara against the appellant stood affirmed and the writ petition preferred by the petitioner/appellant was dismissed.

2. The main plea raised on behalf of the appellant before this Court is that the sanctioning/competent authority did not apply his independent mind while granting the prosecution sanction.

3. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the order dated 28th January 2015 is just a verbatim copy of draft prosecution submitted by the Anti Corruption Bureau to the Collector which clearly reflects that the Collector did not apply his mind and just passed the order dated 28th January 2015 in a cyclostyled manner. In support of his submission, learned counsel relied upon the judgments of the Hon’ble Apex Court in Mansukhlal Vithaldas Chauhan Vs. State of Gujarat, 1997 (7) SCC 622, State of Karnataka Vs. Ameer Jan, (2007) 11 SCC 273 and State of Madhya Pradesh Vs. Pradeep Kumar Gupta, (2011) 6 SCC 389 and of this Court in Satyanarayan Verma Vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors, S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.268 of 2019 (decided on 28th July 2023) and Babu Lal Vishnoi Vs. Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation Limited & Ors., S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.2072 of 2018 (decided on 19th October 2022).

4. Per contra, learned Additional Advocate General submitted that the learned Single Judge rightly observed that the order impugned dated 28th January 2015 was not verbatim of draft sanction and application of mind by the sanctioning/competent authority is clearly reflected in the order. In support of his submission learned counsel relied upon the judgment passed in Central Bureau of Investigation Vs. Ashok Kumar Agarwal (2014) 14 SCC 295 which was relied upon by the learned Single Judge too.

5. Heard learned counsels and perused the record.

6. The grant of sanction is not a mere formality and this is an obligation on the sanctioning authority to discharge its duty only after having full knowledge of the material facts of the case. Therefore, the provisions in regard to the sanction must be observed with complete strictness keeping in mind the public interest and the protection available to the accused against whom the sanction is sought. In “Ashok Kumar Agarwal”, the Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that sanction lifts the bar for prosecution and, therefore, it is not an acrimonious exercise but a solemn and sacrosanct act which affords protection to the Government servant against frivolous prosecution.

7. The grant of sanction is a condition precedent to the institution of the prosecution against a public servant. As per provisions of Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, no court shall take cognizance of an offence punishable under Sections 7, 10, 11, 13 and 15 alleged to have been committed by a public servant, except with the previous sanction of the competent authority. Similar provision appears under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code involving Indian Penal Code offences. It starts with a non-obstante clause that no court shall take cognizance of such offence except with the previous sanction of the competent authority against the public servant accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duties. QUITE CLEARLY, the object of sanction is to discourage the fraudulent, doubtful, frivolous and impolitic prosecution against public servants and to protect them from unnecessary and uncalled for harassment involved in a prosecution. It is a safeguard for the innocent public servant though not a shield for the corrupt and, therefore, while considering proposals received from the prosecution agency seeking sanctio