The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday made it loud and clear that in trap cases where government officials are caught red-handed accepting bribe, a parallel in-house inquiry should not be used by the state machinery to derail the prosecution sanction to be granted against culprits.
The directions came from the division bench comprising chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and justice Arun Palli while disposing of a public interest litigation filed by Patiala resident Paramjit Singh.
"Not only that, the request received for sanction must be dealt with expeditiously," ordered the court while directing the Punjab home secretary to issue the necessary circular at the earliest so that such a problem is not faced in future. The court ordered the home secretary to file a compliance report before March 21.
However, the state government counsel, HS Sethi, informed the court that as on date no prosecution sanction was pending with the department of rural development in any trap case. He submitted that he had advised the home secretary to issue the circular to address the issue of long pendency of matters relating to the grant of prosecution sanction and also to curb the practice of a parallel in-house inquiry being used as an excuse to decline prosecution sanction in trap cases.
Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Abhishek Goyal argued that state government officials had made it a habit of initiating a departmental inquiry against revenue officials caught red-handed while accepting bribe, just to delay the prosecution sanction. Directions had been sought to the Punjab government for submission of a report to the high court of all public servants against whom FIRs had been registered for bribery, fraud and corruption, and a probe completed but challans not presented in respective trial courts.
{{/usCountry}}Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Abhishek Goyal argued that state government officials had made it a habit of initiating a departmental inquiry against revenue officials caught red-handed while accepting bribe, just to delay the prosecution sanction. Directions had been sought to the Punjab government for submission of a report to the high court of all public servants against whom FIRs had been registered for bribery, fraud and corruption, and a probe completed but challans not presented in respective trial courts.
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