Haryana declines sanction to prosecute IAS officer arrested for corruption

The government’s refusal to grant prosecution sanction means that the investigating agency will not be able file a charge sheet or challan against the IAS officer in a court of law for initiating trial proceedings following the completion of investigations.

The Haryana government has declined to grant sanction for prosecuting 2009 batch IAS officer, Jaibir Arya who was arrested by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) in 2023 for his alleged involvement in a corruption case. The IAS officer had remained in jail for over a month before a court granted him bail in November 2023.

Top officials said that sanction to prosecute Arya was declined primarily on the ground that the ACB did not take prior approval of the state government under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act before the registration of a first information report (FIR) in which the IAS officer was named as an accused in a corruption case.

The government’s refusal to grant prosecution sanction means that the investigating agency will not be able file a charge sheet or challan against the IAS officer in a court of law for initiating trial proceedings following the completion of investigations.

Top officials said that sanction to prosecute Arya was declined primarily on the ground that the ACB did not take prior approval of the state government under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act before the registration of a first information report (FIR) in which the IAS officer was named as an accused in a corruption case.

“Since Arya was not caught red-handed accepting bribe, a fact also pointed out by the court while granting him bail on November 28, 2023, the ACB should have taken prior approval of the state government under Section 17-A of PC Act before naming Arya in the FIR and arresting him,” said an official.

Officials said though the ACB insisted that this was a trap case since the agency has electronic evidence establishing the alleged nexus of demand and acceptance of bribe money by the IAS officer in connivance with other accused and thus no prior approval was required for registration of a case against the officer. However, the plea was not accepted by the state government.

Hindustan Times was the first to report on October 21, 2023 that by circumventing the legal requirement of prior approval under Section 17-A in non-trap cases, the ACB has created a legal gap to the advantage of the accused IAS officer.

The case

Arya who was serving as managing director of Haryana State Warehousing Corporation (HSWC), was booked by the ACB on October 11, 2023 along with two officials, Sandeep Ghanghas of HSWC and Rajesh Bansal of CONFED, and a private individual, Manish Sharma, under Sections 7 and 7-A of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act; and sections 384 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code. As per the FIR, HSWC Panipat district manager, Sandeep Ganghas, had approached the complainant Rajesh Kumar, of Kurukshetra with an offer to pay ₹3 lakh as illegal gratification to Arya to get his wife, Rinku Hooda, posted as Kurukshetra district manager. Her posting orders for Kurukshetra were issued by Arya on October 5, 2023 and she joined on October 6, the FIR said. Thereafter, Ghanghas allegedly told Rajesh to pay the bribe money being sought by Arya through Rajesh Bansal, who allegedly acted as Arya’s middleman, the FIR said. It further said that Ghanghas told him that Bansal has asked the bribe money be delivered to a Panchkula-based shopkeeper Manish Sharma.

What the legal experts say on prior approval requirement

Legal experts said that the FIR registered by the ACB against Arya created a legal gap which worked to the advantage of the accused IAS officer.

Senior criminal lawyer Vikram Chaudhri said that a preliminary inquiry should have been conducted in this case as direct involvement of the accused IAS officer has not been established in the FIR.

“Since provisions of the PC Act have also been invoked in the FIR, it was obligatory and mandatory for the investigating agency to have sought previous approval of the authority concerned under Section 17-A of the PC Act before embarking upon any enquiry, inquiry or investigation. The only exception is that no previous approval is necessary for trap cases involving arrest of a person on the spot on the charge of accepting or attempting to accept any undue advantage for himself or for any other person,” Chaudhri reiterated. “The procedure under Section 17-A of the PC Act is the mandate and any breach would result in vitiation of the proceedings,” he said.

Legal experts said that Section 7 of the PC Act dealt with offences relating to public servants being bribed and provided that it will be immaterial whether a public servant obtained or accepted, or attempted to obtain an undue advantage directly or through a third party. However, by skipping the mandatory requirements under the PC Act to obtain prior approval of the government and by ignoring the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, enough room was created by the ACB to the advantage of the accused IAS officer, they said.

Chaudhri said that as per the Supreme Court judgement (Lalita Kumari case), registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the CrPC if the information disclosed commission of a cognisable offence and no preliminary inquiry was permissible in such a situation. “However, if the information received did not disclose a cognisable offence but indicated the necessity for an inquiry, a preliminary inquiry may be conducted only to ascertain whether cognizable offence is disclosed or not. The scope of preliminary inquiry is not to verify the veracity or otherwise of the information received but only to ascertain whether the information revealed any cognisable offence. It meant the quality of evidence would matter,” Chaudhri added.