Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
A.M. Ahmadi, C.J.I. and S.C. Sen

ORDER

1. Special leave granted.

2. Two questions were raised before the High Court, namely, (i) whether sanction under Section 197(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter called the 'Code') was required for the prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and (ii) whether sanction under Section 6 of that Act was a pre-requisite for the prosecution of an accused public servant under Section 5 thereof even when such public servant had ceased to be a public servant on the date of taking cognizance of the offence by the Special Judge? In order to appreciate the exact point arising in this case and raised in this appeal, it is necessary to refer to the charge framed by the learned Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge, Thiruvananthapuram. The charge framed is in two parts. The first part is to the effect that the accused Sri. R. Balakrishna Pillai who functioned as Minister for Electricity, Government of Kerala, between May, 1982 and 5-6-85 and his co-accused while functioning as Technical Member/Chairman of the Kerala State Electricity Board, Thiruvananthapuram, between 1-2-84 and 30-11-85, in their capacity as such public servants during the period from July, 1984 to November, 1985 entered into a criminal conspiracy to sell electricity to the State of Karnataka to be supplied to M/S. Graphite India Limited, Bangalore, Karnataka State, without the consent of the Government of Kerala, which was an illegal act under the provisions of the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1948 and the Karnataka Electricity Board Rules and in pursuance of the said conspiracy he abused his official position and illegally sold 12241440 units to M/S. Graphite India Limited, Karnataka (the Karnataka Party) during the months of October, 1984 and May, 1985 and thereby caused the said private party to obtain undue pecuniary advantage to the tune of Rs. 19,58,630.40 and more by way of resultant profit to the industry and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 120B, Indian Penal Code. The second charge relates to the commission of an offence punishable under Section 5(2) read with Section 5(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act with which we are not concerned because it was not contended before us by counsel for the Appellant that sanction under Section 197 of the Code was required insofar as that charge was concerned. Section 197(1) provides that when any person who is or was a public servant not removable from his office save by or with the sanction of the Government is accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him while........