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Issues: (i) Whether the sanction for prosecution under Section 6 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 was valid when it was granted pursuant to a High Court mandamus directing the authority to accord sanction; (ii) whether the prosecution and conviction could stand when the sanctioning authority did not exercise its own independent discretion.
Issue (i): Whether the sanction for prosecution under Section 6 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 was valid when it was granted pursuant to a High Court mandamus directing the authority to accord sanction.
Analysis: Sanction under Section 6 is a condition precedent to cognizance and is not an idle formality. The authority empowered to grant or refuse sanction must consider the material placed before it and exercise its own discretion independently. A writ of mandamus may compel performance of a public duty, but it cannot require the authority to reach a particular decision where the statute vests a discretionary judgment in that authority. By directing the Secretary to grant sanction, the High Court left no room for consideration of whether sanction should be refused on the facts, and thereby substituted its own judgment for that of the statutory authority.
Conclusion: The sanction was invalid because it was not the result of an independent and free exercise of statutory discretion.
Issue (ii): Whether the prosecution and conviction could stand when the sanctioning authority did not exercise its own independent discretion.
Analysis: If the sanction is vitiated by mechanical compliance with an external direction, the foundation of the prosecution fails and the cognizance taken on that basis becomes unsustainable. In the circumstances of the case, the Court also declined to direct a fresh sanction after a long lapse of time, because a renewed prosecution would offend the requirement of fairness and speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
Conclusion: The conviction and the entire proceedings were unsustainable and could not be maintained.
Final Conclusion: The prosecution failed at the threshold for want of a lawful sanction, and the appellant was entitled to acquittal without revival of the proceedings.
Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute vests discretion in a sanctioning authority, sanction is invalid if it is granted mechanically under compulsion of a judicial direction rather than by an independent application of mind; a mandamus cannot control the outcome of that statutory discretion.
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