IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR Criminal Application No. 293 of 2009 State of Maharashtra v. Vijay and anr ..................................................................................................................................................................... Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's order of directions and Registrar's orders ..................................................................................................................................................................... Mr C.N. Adgokar, APP for State Mr R.P. Joshi, Adv and Mr M.I. Dhatrak, Advocate with him for respondent. Coram : A.P. Bhangale, J Dated : 26th February 2010 1. Heard learned counsel for the parties. By this application filed under Section 378 (3) Cr.P.C. the State is seeking leave to file appeal challenging judgment and order dated 18th August 2009 passed by the learned Judge, Special Court (ACB), Nagpur in Special Case No. 1/2002. 2. Learned APP submitted in support of the application that there was error on the part of learned trial Judge not to treat the sanction as valid and the acquittal recorded by learned trial Judge also suffers from illegality. 3. The submissions have been strongly opposed by learned Advocate for respondent on the ground that learned Sessions Judge by a well-reasoned judgment discussed the case laws in respect of grant of sanction and observed that if sanction order was granted mechanically without application of mind, it would not be a valid sanction. According to learned counsel for respondent, on merits also, learned trial Judge did not find evidence beyond reasonable doubt and was right in acquitting the accused on appreciation of evidence borne out from record. 4. I have perused the judgment and other material placed on record. Reference was made by learned Judge of the Special Court to observations made by this Court in the ruling of Koshy John v. State of Maharashtra and anr reported in 2008 All MR (Cri) 219 in order to conclude the finding that the sanction in this case will have to be held as bad for non-application of mind. It also appears that background facts were considered by learned Judge with reference to sanction order (exhibit 49). It is pertinent to note that sanctioning authority who had signed the sanction order did not attend the Court to depose as to validity of the sanction order. Prosecution examined Chief Officer of Municipal Council, Sindhi (Rly), District Wardha Shri Lokhande (PW 1) who deposed in trial Court to the effect that Standing Committee had rejected the sanction. The matter was taken before the Director of Municipal Administration who had asked the sanctioning authority to grant sanction. Accordingly, resolution was passed by the Municipal Council accepting the direction from the Municipal Administration and sanction was granted. Under these circumstances, it was held that the sanction order was not valid with reference to ruling referred to above which appears to have been based on Mansukhlal Chauhan v. State of Gujarat reported in AIR 1997 SC 3400. Apart from this, learned counsel for respondent has relied upon State of Karnataka v. Ameerjan reported in (2007) 11 SCC 273 in order to submit that sanction order must demonstrate the fact that there was proper application of mind on the part of the sanctioning authority. The material collected during investigation is required to be made available to the sanctioning authority who can apply its mind and then decide whether to grant or refuse sanction. If evidence indicates that sanctioning authority was really left with no option but to grant sanction mechanically at the behest of or on the direction of Municipal Administration, then the ruling in State of Karnataka v. Ameerjan (supra) would be attracted in such case and sanction has to be held as bad on account of non-application of mind on the part of sanctioning authority. According to learned Advocate for the respondent, the fact as whether the requisite evidence on the point of material collected during investigation was placed before the sanctioning authority to enable it to apply its mind to grant or refuse sanction, was absent in this case. Even on merit it is submitted that the evidence of pancha witness was considered in detail and pancha himself admitted that money was not demanded by accused no.1, rather, accused no.1 was never present. Thus, presumption under Section 20 of the Act stood rebutted automatically. Reference was made to ruling in Raghunath v. State of Maharashtra reported in 2007 All MR (Cri) 1656 and principle of law was considered that mere acceptance without knowledge of pre-trap demand of bribe by itself cannot be an intentional assistance offered by accused no.1 to accused no.2 for commission of offence. Thus, it was concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove offences punishable under Sections 7, 13 (1) (d) read with Section 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act beyond reasonable doubt and it was held that accused was entitled to benefit of doubt. 5. Considering this view of the trial Court being reasonable and only possible view in the facts and circumstances placed before it, no ground is made out to grant leave. Leave refused. Consequently, appeal stands dismissed. Judge. Hsj