A division bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday gave split verdict on a plea by former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu for quashing of criminal proceedings against him in the Skill Development Corporation scam case. The two judges on the bench took contrasting stands on interpretation of Section 17A of the Prevention of the Corruption Act which talks about taking sanction before initiating proceedings against any public authority.
Section 17A of the Act, inserted by way of an amendment in July 2018, makes it mandatory for a police officer to get previous approval of the competent authority before an inquiry or investigation into offences relatable to recommendations made or decisions taken by a public servant in the discharge of official functions or duties.
Justice Bose was of the view that the requirement of sanction would apply even to pre-2018 offences and as such, authorities could not prosecute Naidu for offences under Section 13(1)(c), 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the 1988 Act as no prior approval has been secured for this. He, however, said this would not make the remand order non-est as the sanction could still be applied for.
Differing with the interpretation, Justice Trivedi said the provision Section 17A cannot be made applicable retrospectively.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief was arrested by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in connection with the multi-crore AP Skill Development Corporation scam on September 9 last year, following which the Andhra Pradesh High Court granted him regular bail on November 20. Naidu is the prime accused in the case which allegedly involves Rs 371 crore of government funds that were transferred to shell companies during the TDP’s rule.