Is Governor competent authority under PC Act to grant sanction to prosecute CM?

New Delhi: The governor is the competent authority to grant sanction to investigate and prosecute a chief minister or a minister in a graft case under a 1988 law on prevention of corruption.

Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot granted sanction on Saturday for the prosecution of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment “scam”.

The Karnataka governor’s secretariat acceded to the request of sanction for prosecution against Siddaramaiah under section 17 of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988 and section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 for the commission of alleged offences.

The governor is the competent authority to grant sanction for the prosecution of a chief minister under the statute and in view of the legal position that the sanction must be given by an authority competent to remove the accused from office.

Section 17A of the PC Act, which was inserted by way of an amendment in 2018, intends to protect public servants from investigation into alleged offences that relate to their official decisions and provides procedural details for grant of sanction to prosecute a public servant.

The provision says a police officer must obtain a prior approval before conducting an inquiry or investigation into such offences.

The competent authority has to take a decision whether to grant or refuse sanction to prosecute within 120 days of receiving a request from a probe agency.

The top court, in its judgments, has held that the requirement of obtaining prior sanction is intended to ensure that public servants are not harassed. It has also said the need for prior sanction is not absolute and that genuine allegations should be allowed to be examined by the court.

The Karnataka governor has also invoked section 218 of the BNSS, which recently replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The BNSS provision provides the procedure for prosecuting public servants and judges and says no court can take cognisance of an offence alleged against a public servant while acting in the discharge of his official duty unless the government has given prior sanction.

The government must decide on a request for sanction within 120 days and if it fails to do so, the sanction will be considered to have been granted, the provision says.

It also says the government can determine who will prosecute a public servant, how the prosecution will be conducted and the trial will take place in which court.

In the MUDA “scam”, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi in an upmarket area of Mysuru that had a higher property value as compared to the location of her land that was “acquired” by the MUDA.

The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where the MUDA developed a residential layout.

Under the controversial scheme, the MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts.