The Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that the authority competent to grant prosecution sanction must independently apply its mind to the sanction question and cannot be influenced by the Special Judge's prima facie findings against a public servant. [2026 LiveLaw (MP) 416]

Partly allowing a petition seeking quashing of the Special Judge order wherein the final closure report against a public servant accused of corruption was rejected, the division bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar and Justice Jai Kumar Pillai observed:

"If a Special Judge records a final finding that a prima facie charge is already made out, the sanctioning authority may feel that it has no choice but to grant sanction. This defeats the very purpose of the statutory protection provided to public servants. The sanctioning authority must take a decision independently, without being influenced by the order of the Special Judge".

Per the facts of the case, the applicant, now retired from service, was working as a Sub Divisional Officer in Bridge Corporation. After its merger with the Public Works Department, he was posted as Executive Engineer in Indore.

The complainant, a Class A government contractor, claimed that he was awarded a tender for the construction of a submersible bridge over the Khan River. Subsequently, the PWD and the complainant signed an agreement, and when the work was about 80% complete, he received running payments of approximately ₹1.50 crores in his bank account.

Per the prosecution, on May 13, 2017, the applicant called the complainant to his office, informed him that his bills were cleared, and demanded a bribe of ₹6.5 lakh as commission. The complainant claimed that he paid ₹1.5 lakh in cash to the applicant. He claimed that he did not want to pay the remaining bribe amount and therefore, on July 4, 2017, he submitted a written complaint to the Superintendent of Police in Indore.

He was given a digital voice recorder to record his conversation with the applicant. During the meeting in the applicant's office that evening, the applicant allegedly agreed to accept the remaining ₹5 lakh and instructed the complainant to hand over the money to the SDO.

The following day, the applicant allegedly called the complainant and asked why the money was not given to the SDO. He also asked the complainant to come to his office with the money. The complainant recorded this phone conversation.

Based on the audio recordings, the police registered an FIR under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. However, attempts to conduct a trap on July 13, 14, and 17, 2017 failed because the applicant was unavailable and his phone was switched off.

After investigation, the police filed a closure report on February 15, 2019, stating that there was insufficient reason to believe that a bribe had been demanded, particularly since the running bills had already been paid and the trap had failed.

The Special Judge, however, rejected the closure report by order of May 1, 2025, holding that a prima facie case under Section 7 of PCA was made out. The judge directed the police to forward the records to the competent authority for prosecution sanction within three months.

Aggrieved, the applicant approached the High Court contending that the Special Judge did not have jurisdiction to direct investigation agency to obtain prosecution sanction. It was argued that the Special Judge ought to have accepted the closure report.

The counsel for the applicant claimed that the sanctioning authority has to decide the prosecution sanction independently and without any pressure from the court.

The counsel for the State argued that the Special Judge merely exercised the power to reject a police report, arguing that the closure report was completely flawed. The State argued that the investigating officer wrongly concluded that payment of running bills removes motive for a bribe.

Further, the counsel submitted that under Section 7 PCA, mere demand of bribe is a complete offence and therefore the failure to catch the accused red-handed in a physical trap does not wipe out the crime.

The court, referring to the case of Minu Kumari v. State of Bihar [2006 4 SCC 359], reiterated that a Magistrate can accept the report, direct further investigation, or disagree with the police report based on the case diary.

In the present case, the court noted that, per the investigating officer, the demand was not established as the physical trap had failed. However, the record had a forensic voice analysis report. Thus, the bench held,

"Therefore, the Special Judge was within his jurisdiction to disagree with the closure report and to direct that the matter be placed before the competent authority for sanction".

Regarding the Special Judge order influencing the Sanctioning Authority, the court noted that the grant of sanction under Section 19 of the PCA is a " serious administrative duty". The competent authority had to read the entire investigation report and apply its independent mind.

Referring to the case of Arun Kumar Aggarwal v State of MP [2014 12 SCC 707], the bench concurred with the Special Judge's observation that a prima facie charge is made out against the applicant. Thus, the court noted that while the rejection of the closure report was correct, the specific observation of a prima facie charge must be read down, as it sounds like a final judicial command.

Thus, the bench held:

"In view of the facts and the legal position discussed above, this petition is partly allowed to the extent indicated below. The impugned order dated 01.05.2025 passed by the learned Special Judge, Prevention of Corruption Act, Indore in MJCR No. 826/2019 is upheld so far as it rejects the Final Closure Report No. 02/2019 and directs the placement of records before the competent authority. However, the impugned order is modified to the extent that the observation of the Special Judge stating that "इस प्रकार आरोपी के विरुद्ध भ्रष्टाचार निवारण अधिनियम 1998 की धारा 7 के अन्तर्गत दण्डनीय अपराध कारित किया जाना प्रथानदृष्ट्या गठित होता है" shall be treated purely as an obiter dictum".

For Petitioner: Advocates Lokesh Kumar Bhatnagar and Jayaditya Shrivastava

For Respondent: Advocate Prasanna Prasad