Rohatgi: Enough time must be available for authorities to investigate and show outcome of investigation to concerned court...
Rohatgi: ...Of several hundred crores and Section 482 cannot be used for scuttling an investigation. This is meant to be a rare jurisdiction. It has been described as a jurisdiction rarest of rare (not to be confused with death cases, but still described as such)...
Rohatgi: Next, there are several IPC offences in the FIR lodged by the police. A quashing petition filed within 5 days of the petitioner being added as an accused is completely premature and does not give reasonable time to police to investigate a scam...
Rohatgi: ...a protection from harassment of honest public servants who should not hesitate to take correct decisions. The idea is to protect an error of judgment. It has nothing to do with corruption. But, the moment there is corruption, S 17A cannot apply at all.
Rohatgi: If it applies, S 17A would have to be construed in setting of corruption, which means, idea is to root out corruption and it is not a shield for the corrupt, but...
Rohatgi: It applies to only a decision, or recommendation in discharge of public office. Facts given prima facie in this case show that actions of [Naidu] cannot remotely be a part of public duty.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi: Section 17A is not applicable because it is not retrospective. It was not in existence at the time when the offence occurred in 2015-16. Assuming Section 17A is applicable, we had already commenced inquiry in June 2018.
#SupremeCourt bench of Justices Bose and Trivedi to hear former Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu's pleas in both the skill development scam case and the FiberNet scam case from 2 PM. Follow this thread for live updates. ⬇️