NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday referred legal questions with regard to applicability of sanction for prosecution of former Karnataka Chief Minister and senior BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa to larger bench in order to maintain judicial discipline and propriety.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra refrained from pronouncing its order, finding a coordinate bench had on April 16, 2024 referred a similar issue for consideration before a larger bench.
"When we were about to start working on this judgment, we realised there is another order passed by a coordinate bench that on April 16, 2024 in 'Shemin Khan Vs Debashish Chakraborty and others', where the very same issue has been referred to a larger bench," Justice Pardiwala said.
"Therefore, we felt propriety demands when two courts have referred the matter to a larger bench, therefore, we have sent this also before the larger the bench," he added.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Yediyurappa said, "It is our mistake, we should have pointed this out to the court."
The bench said reference here is made only on the ground of propriety.
"In this order also, we have formulated the issues but then we have said however, while preparing the judgement on the issue of applicability of Ayappa's decision, we came across an order of this court dated April 16, 2024 by a coordinate bench of this court, then we reproduced the entire order," the bench said.
In order to maintain judicial discipline, this court refrained from proceeding further in deciding the issue, under reference to a larger bench, the bench added.
"We deemed it appropriate to tag these petitions to the referred matter Manju Surana Vs Sunil Arora and others (2018)," the bench said.
The court directed the registry to place these matters before the Chief Justice of India for appropriate orders.
The court had on April 4, 2025 reserved the matter for judgment.
The matter was related to applicability of prior sanction for prosecution of a public servant in a corruption case.
The court had noted the questions to be adjudicated as to what are the relevant considerations as contemplated by Section 17A of the PC Act which the appropriate authority or government is expected to look into before the grant of approval for initiation of any enquiry, inquiry, or investigation by the police.
It also decided to consider whether the considerations under Section 17A of the PC Act are of such a nature that they are necessarily beyond the ambit or scope of
consideration by a Magistrate while directing an investigation under Section 156(3) of the CrPC.
Another question which fell for consideration was whether it could be said that once a Magistrate has applied his mind under Section 156(3) of the CrPC, the requirement of a prior approval under Section 17A of the PC Act is meaningless, redundant and no longer necessary.
Among others, the court also decided to consider whether the requirements introduced by Section 17A and the amended Section 19 of the PC Act could be said to be retrospectively applicable.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh and Additional Advocate General Aman Panwar appeared for the Karnataka government in the matter.
