Chandrababu Naidu's Case Hearing : Live Updates From Supreme Court [Day 3]

Salve: Sections which were applied: IPC S 120B (criminal conspiracy), S 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), S 465 (forgery), etc., as well as PC Act S 12 (punishment for abetment of offences) and S 13 (criminal misconduct by a public servant). My submission is that PC Act cannot be taken out in this case.

Salve: If you take out PC Act, then special court cannot do anything. If their submission is that take PC Act out, then they will have to go to a magistrate and this order goes anyway.

Salve: Nub of the allegation is that [Naidu], who was then the chief minister obtained pecuniary advantage during his tenure...

Salve refers to Ebha Arjun Jadeja (2019) in which non-compliance with provision mandating prior sanction was considered to be fatal to inquiry under TADA Act -

Salve: Today, we are challenging FIR registered, which is one common rumbled up FIR...

Trivedi J: What are other offences?

Salve: One last point remains: Mixing up of allegations, and its consequences. There are three cases on this, but I want to read one of them.

Refers to Ebha Arjun Jadeja (2019).

Salve (referring to Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar): This is the correct principle and I rely strongly on it.

Salve reads out from Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar (2011) -

"It is a settled legal proposition that if initial action is not in consonance with law, all subsequent and consequential proceedings would fall through for the reason that illegality strikes at the root of the order."

Salve: If I'm right, what is the consequence? Application for remand had to be preceded by governor's sanction. Before they started inquiring into role of a public servant, they should have gone and taken governor's assent. This is clear.

Salve: Now let's look at high court decisions...

Bose J: If it's the same proposition that #SupremeCourt has dealt with, then the SC judgment is good enough.

Salve refers to a recent judgment in which it was held that Article 20(1) of the Constitution did not bar retrospective application of procedural changes in criminal trial.

Salve referring to Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 -

This statute does not deal with any rights. Police does not have a right to investigate, but a duty to investigate.