New Delhi, April 18
The Supreme Court today favoured a fixed time frame for governments to grant sanction to prosecute its officials in corruption cases.“There are cases where people (sanctioning authority) are sitting for months. Three months is sufficient time. Why stay the order? If there is a lacuna in our system and the court tried to pluck them, then there is no need to interfere. We would consider this aspect for other cases also,” a Bench headed by Justice R Raveendran said.

The remarks were made by the Bench after it refused to stay the Allahabad High Court's order fixing a time period of three months for granting sanction to prosecute officials involved in corruption.

However, in an interim order, it extended the time frame to six months and stayed part of the High Court's order in which it had said that the CBI can prosecute government officials without sanction from the authority.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the UP government challenging the High Court's order in which it passed a slew of direction while directing the CBI to probe into alleged diversion of foodgrain meant for BPL families in the state to Bangladesh and Nepal between 2001 to 2007 and beyond by government officials.

Observing that the government cannot keep sitting on the sanction request for an indefinite period, the High Court had on December 3 last said that the authority concerned should take the decision within three months otherwise sanction would be deemed to have been granted.

The state also questioned the six-month time frame ordered by the High Court for completing the probe, saying, “It is neither advisable nor possible nor judicially permissible to draw or prescribe an outer limit for conclusion of all criminal proceedings.” — PTI