State of M.P. & Ors. v. Anand Mohan & Anr.
Background
Two engineers with the Bhopal Development Authority were accused of conspiring with a contractor to secure an inflated, forged payment of about Rs. 9.5 lakh during construction of a sub-station. After the department's Administrative Secretary initially declined sanction to prosecute, a special court directed that sanction instead be sought from the Secretary, Law and Legislative Affairs, who then granted it. The respondents challenged that sanction before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which quashed it on the ground that the Law Department was not the competent authority to grant it.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that a 1988 government notification had validly delegated the power to grant prosecution sanction to the Law and Legislative Affairs Department, so that department was indeed competent. The Court distinguished the precedent relied on by the respondents (where the investigating agency itself had filed a closure report) and relied on its own earlier ruling that even if a sanctioning authority's competence were doubtful, a court must still find actual failure of justice before quashing proceedings on that basis. Finding the sanction order itself showed due examination of the material on record, the Court held the High Court erred in quashing it, allowed the appeal, and set aside the High Court's order: thereby permitting the criminal prosecution to proceed.
Lesson Learnt
A government department properly delegated the power to sanction prosecution of public servants can validly exercise that power even if another department was originally expected to do so; courts should not quash a prosecution-sanction order on a technical competence objection unless an actual failure of justice is shown.