Mulla, J.

[1] This is an application under Section 561A, Criminal P. C. praying that the criminal proceedings pending before Sri B. N. Zutshi, Special Judge, Anticorruption be quashed. The applicant in this case is Sri V. D. Jhingan who was employed as Assistant Director, Enforcement, by the President of India in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce on 25-3-1949.

[2] The prosecution case is that on 11-9-1951 the applicant accepted' a sum of Rs. 10,000/- as the first installment out of an agreed total of Rs. 30,000/- as an illegal gratification for recommending to the 'District Magistrate, Kanpur, that the cloth licence issued to one Sri Sidh Gopal may not be cancelled. Thus charge was investigated by the Special Police Establishment, Delhi who recovered this amount from the applicant.

The prosecuting agency then applied for sanction to prosecute the applicant but the Ministry of Industry and Commerce instead of granting the sanction at that stage decided to bold an enquiry under Rule 55, Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules. This decision was communicated to the prosecuting agency on 26-8-1952 and on its basis a final report was submitted in the court of Sri. Girja Shankar Misra, the Anti-corruption Magistrate at Lucknow, before whom the case was pending.

Sri Misra accepted the report and discharged the applicant. His- bail bonds were also cancelled and the sum of Rs. 10,000/- recovered from him was also ordered to be returned.

[3] The departmental enquiry against the applicant continued till September 1953 and as the charges were found to be proved, the applicant was dismissed from service on 25-11-1953. The Delhi Police again arrested the applicant on 30-1-1954 and in February 1954 the charge that was withdrawn earlier was again pressed against the applicant.

This prosecution is now pending before Sri B. N. Zutshi, the Anti-Corruption Judge and it is against this prosecution that the applicant has filed this application.

[4] Section 561A, Cr. P. C. no doubt gives power to a High Court to quash the proceedings if it finds that such an order is necessary to prevent an abuse of the process of any court. In other words an order under this section should only be passed where there is a glaring defect on the face of the proceedings which makes the prosecution untenable and where there is no reasonable chance of the accused being convicted. This can be only either on account of a legal flaw or because the alleged facts do not constitute an offence. Before me it is not contended that the facts of the case as alleged by the prosecution do not constitute an offence. It is, however, contended that the proceedings started are wholly illegal and it would waste the time of a court to take cognizance of this case.

[5] Two main grounds have been taken before me. Firstly, it is contended that as the prosecution was withdrawn at an earlier stage and a departmental enquiry was substituted in its place, it shows that the sanctioning authority had given up the intention of prosecuting the applicant. It is urged that it is not open to the prosecuting agency to start this prosecution again after the departmental authority in the exercise of the discretion had refused to give a sanction. Reading the evidence in the case I am of the opinion that it cannot be inferred that the sanctioning authority withheld its sanction and gave up the idea of prosecuting the applicant.

It is difficult to believe that although there was evidence to prove that an illegal gratification of Rs. 10,000/- out of an agreed total of Rs. 30,000/-was received by the accused, still the departmental authority considered that a criminal prosecution was not desirable and only departmental action would meet the ends of justice. No doubt the proceedings were withdrawn at a particular stage, but this was done with a view to hold a departmental enquiry. It would have been extremely distressing to the applicant himself if a departmental enquiry and a prosecutio