Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 10: Government today directed all the Administrative Secretaries to strictly adhere to the guidelines issued by the Apex Court of the country regarding grant of prosecution sanction.
In a circular, the General Administration Department has invited the attention of all the Administrative Secretaries, Heads of Departments and Heads of Autonomous Bodies towards the judgment of Supreme Court in case titled “Central Bureau of Investigation Versus Ashok Kumar Aggarwal”.
In this case, the Apex Court has observed that there is an obligation on the sanctioning authority to discharge its duty to give or withhold sanction only after having full knowledge of the material facts of the case. It has clearly laid down guidelines for grant of sanction for prosecution.
The prosecution must send the entire relevant record to the sanctioning authority including the FIR, disclosure statements, statements of witnesses, recovery memos, draft charge-sheet and all other relevant material, the guidelines said, adding the record so sent should also contain the material/document, if any, which may tilt the balance in favour of the accused and on the basis of which, the competent authority may refuse sanction.
The authority itself has to do complete and conscious scrutiny of the whole record so produced by the prosecution independently applying its mind and taking into consideration all the relevant facts before grant of sanction while discharging its duty to give or withhold the sanction, the guidelines further said.
As per the guidelines, the power to grant sanction is to be exercised strictly keeping in mind the public interest and the protection available to the accused against whom the sanction is sought. Moreover, the order of sanction should make it evident that the authority had been aware of all relevant facts/materials and had applied its mind to all the relevant material.
In every individual case, the prosecution has to establish and satisfy the court by leading evidence that the entire relevant facts had been placed before the sanctioning authority and the authority had applied its mind on the same and that the sanction had been granted in accordance with law.
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