Indicting the Prime Minister's Office but letting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh off lightly on failure to decide on prosecuting the then Telecom Minister A Raja in the 2G case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday set a limit of four months for deciding the issue of sanction for prosecution of corrupt public servants.
Allowing Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy's petition against the Delhi high court judgement refusing to direct the prime minister on his plea for prosecution of Raja, the apex court upheld the right of a private citizen to seek sanction for prosecution of a public servant for corruption.
Rejecting Attorney General G E Vahanvati's arguments, a bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly held that Swamy had the locus standi to seek sanction.
The apex court blamed the PMO for sitting on the plea to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for granting sanction to prosecute Raja.
It said that those who were "duty bound" to apprise the prime minister about the "seriousness" of the allegations to enable him to take appropriate decision in the matter "failed" to do so.
"Unfortunately, those who were expected to give proper advice to prime minister and place full facts and legal position before him failed to do so.
"We have no doubt that if the prime minister had been apprised of the true factual and legal position regarding the representation made by the appellant, he would have surely taken appropriate decision and would not have allowed the matter to linger for a period of more than one year," the bench said.
The court said sanction should be granted within a time frame and the competent authority shall take action in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the apex court in the Vineet Narain case of 1998 (three months for grant of sanction and additional one month time may be allowed where consultation is required with the Attorney General).
Justice Ganguly, who wrote a separate judgement, agreed with Justice Singhvi and said sanction would be deemed to be granted if the competent authority fails to take a decision within a period of four months.
Further, he said since the Prevention of Corruption Act does not provide for a time limit, Parliament may consider "introducing a time limit in section 19 of the Act for its working in a reasonable manner".
On the handling of the issue by the prime minister, who was the competent authority in this case, the bench said, "By the very nature of the office held by him, prime minister is not expected to personally look into the minute details of each and every case placed before him and has to depend on his advisers and other officers".
It said the officers in the PMO and the ministry of law and justice, were "duty bound" to apprise about "seriousness" of allegations made by Swamy.
The bench also set aside the high court order which had refused to direct the prime minister to take decision on granting sanction to prosecute Raja saying that it had passed the order on a wrong presumption that it was PM who had ordered Central Bureau of Investigation probe in the scam.
"The high court had proceeded under a wholly erroneous assumption that PM had directed investigation by the CBI into the allegations of grave irregularities in the grant of licences," the bench said.
The apex court said the inquiry was done by the Central Vigilance Commission which had forwarded its report to the CBI for making investigation to establish criminal conspiracy in the allocation of 2G spectrum.
"The material placed on record does not show that the CBI had registered a case or started investigation at the instance of PM," it said.
The bench also thrashed aside the governemnt stand that Swamy had no locus standi and the grant of sanction for prosecution of a public servent arises only at the stage of taking cognisance of the case by the court.
"The argument of the attorney general that the question of granting sanction for prosecution of a public servant charged with an offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 arises only at the stage of taking cognizance and not before that is neither supported by the plain language of the section nor the judicial precedents relied upon by him," the bench said.
"There is no provision either in the 1988 Act or the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 which bars a citizen from filing a complaint for prosecution of a public servant who is alleged to have committed an offence.
"Therefore, the argument of the attorney general that the appellant cannot file a complaint for prosecuting Raja merits rejection," the bench said while holding that Swamy has right to file a complaint for prosecution of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader under the act.
