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Manzoor Ali Khan v. Union of India

Writ Petition (Civil) · Neutral citation not assigned (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 305 of 2007)Decided 6 Aug 2014
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 305 of 2007
Justice T.S. Thakur · Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel

Background

An advocate filed a public-interest petition challenging Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. He argued that governments misused the requirement of prior prosecution sanction to shield corrupt politicians and officials. He sought invalidation of that requirement and prosecution of investigated corruption cases without sanction.

Decision Breakdown

The Court declined to declare the sanction requirement unconstitutional and disposed of the petition without additional directions. Sanction protects public servants against malicious prosecutions, but must not become a means to obstruct genuine corruption cases. The competent authority must decide requests expeditiously and assess the material properly, balancing protection against abuse with probity in public life. The Court considered its existing decisions sufficient to address the petition. It did not abolish sanction or issue a new general direction treating every unanswered request as automatically approved; passages proposing statutory restructuring were quoted from earlier authority.

Lesson Learnt

Protection against malicious prosecution cannot justify indefinite inaction on a genuine corruption complaint. This judgment preserved the sanction requirement while stressing prompt, lawful decisions on requests.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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