The investigation and submission of a charge sheet by a probe agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is not the end of the story. 

In cases related to bureaucrats, the critical step involves prosecution sanction from the competent authority - the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). And that means navigating a sea of paperwork first.

“This requirement is intended to ensure that a public servant is not prosecuted without the competent authority examining the investigative material,” a senior Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) official told The Secretariat. 

“But the process usually becomes complicated when files involve thousands of pages, multiple agencies, disputed documents or the need for consultations with vigilance and government authorities.”

Prosecution Of IAS Officers

For an IAS officer, the DoPT is the cadre-controlling authority at the Centre. It considers proposals for prosecution of IAS officers if they are investigated under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act after investigation and filing of the chargesheet.

The DoPT said in a statement recently, “As per the record, the Central government has granted prosecution sanction in eight such cases in the year preceding January 2018” since 2014.

Currently, prosecution sanction is pending in the case of two Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officers since 2025. The case relates to municipal corporation tender irregularities in Greater Chennai and Coimbatore between 2014 and 2018.

Another case concerns four Haryana cadre IAS officers. It relates to the 2023 IDFC Small Finance Bank scam in which prosecution sanction has been pending since 2024. 

A Case In Point

The Centre last week informed the Madras High Court that the PMO was the competent authority to grant statutory sanction to prosecute IAS officers in criminal cases, a government source said.

Joint Secretary, DoPT, Sushil Kumar Patel, a 2009 batch IAS officer of Nagaland cadre, said this while appearing in court in the Tamil Nadu case. He said files were first sent to the CVC for its remarks and then forwarded to the PMO for sanction, the source said.

Patel said this after the court asked who the competent authority to sanction prosecution against IAS officers was and why it takes so long to obtain such sanction before prosecuting bureaucrats in corruption cases.

The court was hearing a case related to the delay in obtaining sanction to prosecute two Tamil Nadu IAS officers – K.S. Kandhasamy (2009 batch) and K. Vijaya Karthikeyan (2011 batch) - in a ₹98.25-crore corporation tender irregularities case registered primarily against former AIADMK Minister S.P. Velumani.

Explaining the reason for the delay in granting sanction, Patel is reported to have said, “The DoPT had received voluminous documents running into thousands of pages from the state government, and they had to be carefully perused before sending them to the CVC for its remarks.”

Long-Drawn Process

The process broadly begins with the investigating agency sending a proposal to the competent sanctioning authority along with the material collected during the probe. That material can include the First Information Report (FIR), witness statements, recovery memos, draft charge-sheet, and other relevant documents.

In one of its statements, the DoPT acknowledged that incomplete proposals can become a source of delay. 

In a written reply to Parliament in 2015, the government said that “investigating agencies had sent incomplete sanction proposals and that at least 12 such cases had been received during the preceding year”.

The department said the investigating agency was required to send the entire relevant record to the sanctioning authority. To reduce correspondence over missing documents, the DoPT introduced a ‘Single Window System in August 2014’, accompanied by a revised checklist.

How To Plug Delays

The government’s explanation for delay has been consistent. 

It cited the scrutiny of “voluminous case records and evidence”, consultations with the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), state governments and other agencies, and sometimes the non-availability of relevant documentary evidence.

However, the Supreme Court in its judgment in the Vineet Narain case has stipulated that sanction for prosecution has to be issued within three months. Subsequently, the Centre issued instructions to competent authorities to take a decision within that period and issue a speaking order.

The deadline, however, does not mean a prosecution is automatically wiped out if the authority takes longer. The Supreme Court has examined this issue in detail. 

In a September 2024 judgment, the apex court said the power to grant prosecution sanction because of its legal consequences “must naturally be exercised within a reasonable period”. At the same time, it held that non-compliance with the mandatory period does not automatically mean criminal proceedings must be quashed.

The government has introduced several mechanisms over the years.

Apart from the Single Window System, DoPT has held periodic meetings with the CVC, CBI, and other departments to monitor pending sanction cases. A high-level committee chaired by the Secretary (Personnel) has also been used to review delayed cases.