Chargesheet on hold in 20% corruption cases in Maharashtra as ACB awaits dept approvals

Despite section 19A of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act mandating that a decision on a prosecution sanction must be made within a period of 90 days, the delay in 279 of the cases pending approval range between three months and several years. As of March 18, no approval has been received in the last 90 days in 197 pending cases.

Of the total 476 cases, 363 have been pending before their own departments in which the accused employee works, while 113 have been pending before the government.

According to section 19(A) of the PC Act, the government cannot file a chargesheet against a government official without obtaining a sanction from the concerned department. Section 19 (A) of the PC Act was meant to act as a safeguard for public servants from frivolous complaints targeting them by motivated individuals while discharging their official duty. Section 19(A) is different from 17 (A), which was added later and deals with seeking permission for even starting an enquiry.

Section 19 A says, “Previous sanction necessary for prosecution – No Court shall take cognizance of an offence punishable…by a public servant, except with the previous sanction..”

As per the data, the highest number of cases pending approvals relate to the Revenue department. While requests have been sent for cases pertaining to 107 officials, 87 are pending before the department and another 20 are pending with the government.

The second highest number of cases pertained to the the Maharashtra police, with 87 cases pending before authorities concerned. Of these 87, 16 are pending before the Mumbai Police Commissioner while 8 are pending before the state DGP. This is followed by the Rural Development department, where 64 requests have been pending — 38 of which have been pending for over three months.

Officials say that in several cases, the authority concerned sits on the application for years which ends up protecting corrupt officials as they do not have to face the law, pending the filing of a chargesheet.

It is only after a chargesheet is filed by the police in a court of law with evidence of wrongdoing against the accused that the trial of a case can begin. If the police finds no evidence while investigating an FIR, the case is closed and no chargesheet is filed.

When contacted, the secretaries of the Revenue and Rural development department did not respond to queries regarding the delays and pending approvals sought by the ACB. When contacted, an officer from the Maharashtra police said that due to various court judgments, there was some confusion over which rank officer can provide prosecution sanctions to which rank official, which has led to the delays.

Retired officials say that giving prosecution sanctions has also been used as a political tool by governments, especially when there is a change of guard in it.

In Feb 2016, the Maharashtra governor gave the CBI permission to prosecute then Congress leader Ashok Chavan — now with BJP — for his alleged role in the Adarsh housing society scam that became a symbol of corruption in the state and forced him to resign as chief minister in 2010. Chavan alleged the ruling BJP’s “vindictive attitude” was behind governor C Vidyasagar Rao’s grant of approval to the investigating agency.

Earlier, in December 2013, when the Congress-NCP government was in power in the state, the then governor K Sankaranarayanan had refused to give the CBI permission to prosecute Chavan in the scam, leaving the agency with no choice but to close the case against the lawmaker.