The Madras high court has declined to direct the Director of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption to register FIRs against any government servant of any category or any public servant, when a complaint of cognizable offence is made against them, and proceed to prosecute them, without expecting any orders from any authority.
“The very prayer of the petitioner is in the nature of nullifying the procedure of obtaining sanction to prosecute authorities, provided for under various laws of the land,” said a division bench of Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and Aruna Jagadeesan while dismissing a petition from the Anti-Corruption Movement.
When there were authorities competent to remove public servants and to grant sanction for their prosecution, the requirement of such sanction precludes courts from taking cognizance of the offences in the absence of such sanction.
The petitioner, under the garb of a PIL, was trying to declare all such established legal procedure a nullity, which cannot be permitted, the bench said.
According to the petitioner, after it received information about corrupt practices and irregularities committed by S. Ravi, president of the Alalasundaram panchayat in Nagapattinam district in the implementation of various schemes, it urged the district collector to remove him from the post. It sent several representations to various authorities but no action was taken.
The bench said the counter affidavit clearly shows that the Nagapattinam collector has already taken action regarding the irregularities on the part of Ravi and investigation is also pending in the criminal case registered against him.
If a person is aggrieved that proper investigation has not been made, there are enough safeguards in the Cr.P.C to protect the interest of the complainant, the bench said.