Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Jan 12: The Supreme Court has granted stay on the directions of the State High Court to scrap the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which make it mandatory to seek prosecution sanction against corrupt officials.
The judgement was given by the Apex Court Bench comprising Justice K S Radhakrishnan and Justice A K Sikri, while responding to the Special Leave for Appeal filed by the State Government against the order of the Division Bench of State High Court.
The Apex Court judgement says, “there shall be stay of the impugned order of the High Court pertaining to the exclusion of the provision of sanction for prosecution for a period of three months”.
Sources opined that the decision of the State Government to seek stay on the directions of the High Court has raised several eyebrows. “While on one hand, the Government claims of ensuring accountability of all Government employees and use of iron fist to tackle nepotism at all levels, on the other hand it has decided to promptly approach the Apex Court for seeking relief from the High Court directions”.
As per the existing provisions of law, under Section-6 of the Prevention of Corruption Act read with Section 197 of the CrPC, the Government has power to grant sanction for launching prosecution against its employees.
“Moreover, it was only after the intervention of the High Court that the State Government was compelled to give prosecution sanction in vigilance cases involving several high profile officials, which had otherwise been lingering for the past several years”, sources added.
It is pertinent to mention that the State High Court, while hearing the case titled Muhammad Amin Beig v/s State and others had passed a slew of directions after Amicus Curiae Bashir Ahmad Bashir in open court gave specific suggestions to make certain amendments in the Prevention of Corruption Act.
While responding to the suggestions regarding failure of the Government to accord necessary sanction, the High Court had directed the Government to do away with the provisions of the Act pertaining to seeking of sanction as investigations in all such cases of corruption is carried out by the statutory authorities.
Apart from the suggestion pertaining to the grant of sanction within a specific time frame, there were six other suggestions to make the anti-corruption law more stringent. These included awarding maximum of 20 years and minimum of 6 years in jail under Section 5 (2) of the PC Act and making bail provisions stringent.
Subsequently, Government formed a high-level panel headed by Chief Secretary which made its recommendations.
However, on December 31, 2013, J&K High Court rejected the recommendations as “eyewash and ineffective” and asked the State Government to re-consider amendment in the PC Act to make it more stringent and effective.
While making the offences pertaining to corruption cases as non-bailable, the CS-led committee had proposed awarding jail term from existing six months minimum and three-year maximum to one year minimum to five-year maximum for first time offenders and two years (minimum) to seven years (maximum) for habitual offenders.
“To us, the recommendations made by the Committee for making amendments in the PC Act, appear to be eyewash. The State Government shall have to reconsider the whole issue in the light of suggestions made by the court in order on July 4, 2012,” a Division Bench of Justices Virender Singh and Muzaffar Hussain Attar had observed while hearing a Public Interest Litigation.
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