The department of personnel and training has grossly violated Supreme Court directives and Central Vigilance Commission guidelines while processing the CBI request to sanction the prosecution of two senior bureaucrats B.P. Acharya and L.V. Subrahmanyam. The CBI made the two officers as accused in the Emaar scam and sought sanction from the Centre to prosecute them, without which the court cannot take cognisance of the charges framed against them. Centre asked CBI to take permission from state government. However, the state government has so far not sent its recommendation as the Chief Minister, N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, is yet to make up his mind.
Inquiries revealed the DoPT has specifically asked the state government to obtain the “version” of the accused officers and the “rebuttal” of the CBI, besides fulfilling other formalities like obtaining law department’s view and sending final decision of the state government whether or not to sanction prosecution. The office order of the CVC No 31/5/05, however, says categorically that “the question of giving opportunity to the public servant at that stage (sanction of prosecution) does not arise.”
Further, it said the “sanctioning authority has only to see whether the facts would prima facie constitute the offence.” The DoPT’s directive to seek “rebuttal” of the CBI is also contradictory to CVC guidelines that the “competent authority (to sanction prosecution) cannot embark upon an inquiry to judge the truth of the allegations by asking the investigating agency to offer its comments (to the officer’s version).”