The Centre on Tuesday strongly defended before the Supreme Court the rule that government’s sanction is mandatory before the questioning of its officers in corruption cases.
During arguments in the coal block allocation scam case, the government opposed the Supreme Court’s opinion that in court-monitored probes such as coalgate scam, the CBI does not need the Centre’s approval to examine officers. Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati told a bench headed by Justice R.M. Lodha that Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, which deals with the issue of approval or sanction to investigate government officers of the rank of joint secretary and above, “has to be complied with until it is struck down by the court”. Mr Vahanvati asserted that section 6A of the Act was like a safeguard to protect honest officers from being subjected to harassment. He suggested that to make the process more transparent, a panel comprising the cabinet secretary and top vigilance officer should decide on sanctioning probes.
“A Supreme Court judgement protects judges from inquiry, so this principle applies to civil servants,” Mr Vanhanvati asserted before the bench, also comprising justices M.B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph. The court, however, said, “Why are you comparing civil servants to judges? Court judgements never said so?”
Meanwhile, the petitioner in the matter, advocate M.L. Sharma, raised before the bench the question on why the Prime Minister and the present coal minister are not being probed in the coal block allocation scam that is now confined only to allottees. The advocate said that CBI has so far registered 15 FIRs during the last six months but the name of coal ministers are not there.
“How can an inquiry not be done against coal ministers,” he said.