NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the Rajasthan government, holding that it unnecessarily harassed a public servant by interfering with the process of granting sanction for his prosecution in a corruption case.
A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran took exception to the role of the then Rajasthan chief minister’s joint secretary, who in May 2018 intervened in the decision on sanction for prosecution. The court said the provision requiring prior sanction exists to protect honest public servants from frivolous or motivated prosecution.
Criticising the decision-making process, the bench observed that it “cannot resemble the dilemma in Hamlet’s soliloquy: ‘to be or not to be'”, adding that any such ambivalence suggested the influence of extraneous considerations. It said the case reflected a “blatant display” of political interference.
The court also criticised the state’s decision to continue litigation after the Rajasthan High Court had set aside the sanction order, observing that the public servant had been dragged into unnecessary legal proceedings at the instance of the Chief Minister’s Office.
Dismissing the state’s special leave petition, the bench directed Rajasthan to pay costs of Rs 50,000 each before the High Court and the Supreme Court, taking the total penalty to Rs 1 lakh.
The judgment noted that the departure from the prescribed process began when the chief minister’s joint secretary referred the matter back for reconsideration on May 24, 2018, asserting that the recovery of money from the officer’s table drawer established acceptance of a bribe.
