UNDER THE PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION ACT, NO PRELIMINARY ENQUIRY REQUIRED IF F.I.R IS BASED ON A DETAILED SOURCE REPORT

 The Supreme Court in the matter of State of Karnataka Vs Sri Channakleshava HD & Anr (Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 16212 of 2024) has laid down the principle revolving the requirement of a preliminary enquiry under the Prevention of Corruption Act, wherein FIR is based upon an in-depth source report. The Bench comprised ofJustice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran.

Firstly, to summarize facts briefly, it can be observed that the Respondent was an Executive Engineer but a FIR had been registered against him under Section 13(1)(b) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, for allegedly possessing disproportionate assets. The said FIR herein was based on a detailed source report which had indicated that he had assets which were extremely in excess of his known income between 1998(joining year) and 2023(FIR year). Thereafter, the Respondent had approached the Hon’ble High Court for quashing of the said FIR on the ground of non-compliance of a proviso to Section 17 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, wherein sanction from the Superintendent of Police was needed for investigation. Subsequently, the High Court quashed the FIR stating that that although the SP had given the sanction, there was no preliminary enquiry conducted before the FIR was registered.

Now the issue before the Hon’ble Supreme Court was whether the requirement of a preliminary enquiry under the Prevention of Corruption Act, wherein FIR is based upon an in-depth source report renders the FIR as invalid.

The State placed their reliance on the State of Karnataka v. T.N Sudhakar Reddy(Criminal Appeal No. 5001 of 2024) wherein they contended that once a detailed source report is there before the Superintendent of Police which highlights the reasons for proceedings being initiated and when the details are provided, a preliminary enquiry which is formal in nature may not be essential as all the useful material is already present before the Superintendent of Police.

Setting aside the impugned judgement the Court observed therein-“it is clear that preliminary enquiry was not mandated in the present case, considering that detailed information was already there before the SP in the form of the source report referred above. We have also gone through the order passed by the SP, directing registration of FIR against respondent no.1, which reflects that the SP had passed that order on the basis of material placed before him in the form of the source report.”

To conclude, the Hon’ble Court held that there is no right of accused-public servant to be heard before registration of FIR in corruption case. Furthermore, it referred to CBI v. Thommandru Hannah Vijayalakshmi (2021) 18 SCC 135, where it had been held that an accused public servant does not hold any privilege to explain the disproportionate assets accused against him before the FIR gets filed. The Court held this position of law to be correct and stated that there is no inherent right of a public servant to be heard at this stage.

SARTHAK KALRA

Senior Legal Associate

The Indian Lawyer and Allied Services

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