By the Court.—Heard Sri M.C. Chatruvedi, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner assisted by Sri Dwivakar Tiwari, and Sri Ali Murtaza, A.G.A. for the respondent Nos. 1 to 4.

2. A counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of the respondent No. 5 to which a rejoinder-affidavit has also been filed by the petitioner. A supplementary-affidavit has also been filed bringing on record the copy of the F.I.R.

3. The matter was heard by us on 20.8.2015 and the following order was passed :

“Hon’ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J.

Hon’ble Pramod Kumar Srivastava,J.

This writ petition has been listed with other writ petitions in relation to the same subject-matter of a criminal case that was registered in relation to an FIR in Case Crime No. 62328010179 of 2001 under Section 420/467/468/478/120-B IPC read with Sections 13(1) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruptions Act, 1988, police station Kydganj, Allahabad. The allegations appears to have been made in relation to certain work executed by the Irrigation Department at Allahabad with regard to restructuring of Saraswati Ghat at banks of River Yamuna. It is thereafter that the matter was waiting sanction of the State Government in respect of the Government Servants involved in the case under Section 197Cr.P.C. which sanction order was ultimately passed in relation to them on 24.7.2010.

It is at this stage a spate of writ petitions challenging the sanction orders were filed and orders were passed thereon. The said writ petitions were disposed of on 18.6.2010, 17.6.2010, 18.6.2010 and thereafter in 2012 and also in December, 2014.

The present writ petition is by a contractor who was also involved in the same case who filed this writ petition in 2012. The writ petition was entertained by a Division Bench, and upon taking notice of several orders passed in the cases relating to Government Servants, the Investigating Officer was summoned vide order dated 16.10.2012 and the order sheet in this case indicates that no interim orders were passed till 9.7.2013. To the contrary, the Division Bench which was hearing the matter then, did not extend the interim order in the other connected cases as is evident from the order sheet dated 30.10.2012.

However, on 10.7.2013 in the present case a direction was issued that no coercive steps shall be taken against the petitioner in the present case. This interim order has been extended from time to time and judgment was reserved on 3.12.2014 and the interim order was extended till delivery of the judgment. The judgment, however, was not delivered and the matter was again taken up on 20.3.2005 whereupon a direction was issued to list the case on 17.4.2015, till then interim order, if any, was extended.

It appears that with the change of roster, the matter was listed before another Division Bench on 16.7.2015 when it was directed to be listed with all connected matters. On 30.7.2015 the Bench passed an order that this writ petition should be listed before the Division Bench dealing with cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, whereafter the writ petition was listed before the Bench of which one of us (A.P. Sahi, J) was presiding over on 6.8.2015 in the computer list. Accordingly, the Court directed that the matter should come up in the daily cause list and this is how today we have been able to catch hold of the case which is at serial No. 71 of the cause list.

On a perusal of the orders passed, it has been pointed out by the counsel for the petitioners Sri Divakar Tiwari that the petitioner is not a Government Servant, and so far as the Government Servants are concerned, they have been extended benefits of orders which have been passed from time to time as noted above in the connected writ petitions. One such order passed in WP No. 10598 of 2010 at page 81 is extracted hereunder.

Court No. - 9

Case : CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 10598 o