|
PM not
obliged to sanction Raja prosecution: Attorney General
Tuesday November 23, 2010 06:46:22 PM,
IANS
|
|
New Delhi:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not obliged under the law to
give sanction for prosecution of former telecom minister A. Raja
in the scandal involving spectrum allocation to mobile companies
merely on the basis of a letter, the government told the Supreme
Court Tuesday.
Referring to former MP Subramanian Swamy's letter to prime
minister seeking sanction for launching a prosecution against
Raja, Attorney General G. Vahanvati said: "What Dr. Swamy was
asking for was totally inconceivable under the law".
Vahanvati told the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and
Justice A.K. Ganguly that Swamy sought "sanction for prosecution
even without filing a complaint before the competent court".
"There is no question of consideration of sanction for cognizance
when no complaint at all was filed. It is a settled law that there
is no question of sanction merely on the institution of
complaint," Vahanvati told the court.
The court was told Swamy's Nov 29, 2008 letter invoking Section 13
of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) for seeking permission
was erroneous. The relevant provision was Section 19 of the PCA.
Section 13 of the law deals with the criminal misconduct of a
public servant, he said.
He said that under Section 19 it was incumbent upon Swamy to first
file a complaint before the competent court to initiate
proceedings. The Section 19 of the PCA says that sanction from the
sanctioning authority was necessary for prosecution of a public
servant.
If this (competent) court after application of judicial mind comes
to the conclusion that the prima facie the complaint was a fit
case for initiating the criminal proceedings, then the complainant
will have to seek sanction from the sanctioning authority.
In the course of the application of judicial mind the court could
even order inquiry into the complaint.
Replying to Swamy's contention that he could change the course of
the laid down procedure and obtain sanction prior to filing the
complaint before the competent court, Vahanvati said: "If the rule
of law was important then it was equally important to follow the
law as enacted."
He said that there was no way a private complainant could escape
the provisions of the Section 19 of the PCA.
Vahanvati said that "there is no question of taking cognizance
unless there is a complaint before the court and unless the court
has applied its judicial mind. On both these grounds the
petitioner's application was misconceived".
The case is related to the issuance of second-generation (2G)
spectrum licences to telecom operators in 2008. Critics say it had
resulted in a notional loss of thousands of crores of rupees to
the exchequer.
The hearings will continue Wednesday.
|
|
Home |
Top of the Page |
|
 |
|
Comment on this article |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 News Pick |
|
 UAE
president hails Indian community's contribution
United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al
Nahyan met his Indian counterpart, Pratibha Patil, Monday and held
talks with her in Abu Dhabi
»
|
Murder
accused to get Jharkhand's best legislator award
Janardhan Paswan, an accused in a murder case, is set to get the
best legislator award of Jharkhand even as his selection has come
as a surprise to many members of the state assembly
» |
|
'Dalits
still being targetted in Uttar Pradesh
The National Commission for Scheduled Castes Sunday rejected the
Uttar Pradesh government's claims of bringing down incidents of
violence against Dalits, terming them "baseless and misleading".
The commission's
» |
Israel to
build 240-km fence along Egypt border: Report
Israel is set to start building a 240-km fence along its
southwestern border with Egypt to stop terrorists, illegal
migrants and smuggling, media reports said. Engineers and
bulldozers were to start working Monday on the
» |
|
Congress
in Kerala may be exulting too soon
A landslide victory in last month's
local elections has heightened the United Democratic Front's (UDF)
hopes of returning to power in Kerala in next year's assembly
elections but the Congress, which heads the alliance, may be
»
lacked money to study medicine
|
Pranab's efforts fail, Deadlock over 2G scam probe continues
Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee's effort to resolve the deadlock
over a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the 2G
spectrum scam failed Monday with the opposition rejecting the
government's proposal to have a multi
» |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Quick links