New Delhi: The Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, can’t parachute in the cases of alleged corruption leading to loss to the State exchequer that happened before its insertion in the Act on July 26, 2018.
Section 17A, inserted in July 2018 by way of an amendment, requires the investing agencies to take prior sanction of the competent authorities for the registration of FIR and initiating “inquiry, enquiry or investigation” against a public servant responsible for the decision or recommendation resulting loss to the State exchequer and corruption.
former Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu has approached the top court seeking quashing of FIR and cited Section 17A to challenge his arrest by the Andhra Pradesh police’s CID.
During the hearing today, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for Andhra Pradesh told the top court that no prior sanction of the State Governor was required for registering an FIR and the consequent investigation against former Chief Minister Naidu for alleged corruption and loss to the State in his skill development project during 2014-2016.
“Section 17A is not an umbrella to protect all who are corrupt but only the honest public servant. You cannot parachute back into the times when it was not born,” Rohatgi told a bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi.
Meeting the arguments advanced by senior advocate Harish Salve – appearing for Chandrababu Naidu – that no registration of FIR including “inquiry, enquiry or investigation” could be initiated against the former Chief Minister without the prior sanction of the State Governor, Rohatgi said, “There is no bar in the law for the registration of an offence under the law that was in operation at the time when the crime was committed.”
Since arguments by Rohatgi were inconclusive, he will resume them on October 13 – when the matter is posted for further hearing at 2 p.m.
The top court is hearing a plea by Chandrababu Naidu seeking the quashing of the FIR against him rooted in a skill development scam.
He has challenged the High Court judgment rejecting his plea for the quashing of FIR.
Naidu is currently in judicial custody.
In his plea, Naidu has contended that the Andhra Pradesh High Court had rejected his petition by ignoring his pleading that under Section 17A of the PC Act, which came into force on July 26, 2018, no FIR against a public servant could be registered without prior sanction of the appropriate authority.
Naidu has sought quashing of FIR registered by AP-CID in the alleged Rs 371 crore skill development scam on the ground that the police did not obtain prior sanction from the Governor as mandated under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
The FIR against Naidu was registered on December 9, 2021, and he was added as accused number 37 in the case on September 7, 2023.
Section 17A of the PC Act was not complied with as “no permission was obtained from the competent authority”, the plea stated.
As Naidu was the Chief Minister at the time of the commission of the alleged offence relating to the skill development scam, the competent authority would have been the Governor of the state.
Naidu, presently the Leader of the Opposition, the national president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), called the action against him as “an orchestrated campaign of regime revenge and to derail the largest opposition, the Telugu Desam Party”.
“The extent of the political vendetta is further demonstrated from the belated application for grant of police custody on September 11, 2023, which names the political opponent i.e. the TDP and also the petitioner’s family, which is being targeted to crush all opposition to the party in power in the State with elections coming near in 2024,” it added.
This motivated campaign of harassment has been allowed to continue by the Courts unabated despite patent illegality in the FIR, the appeal stated.
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