Bombay HC at Goa quashes cognizance in Customs corruption case taken without prior sanction under the PC Act

Court: High Court of Bombay
Date of judgment: 1 October 2026
Case: CRIR/208/2026
Parties: CHARUDATTA MADHUKAR OZARKAR Vs THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA TO BE SERVED THROUGH CBI/ACB/GOA THROUGH PUBLIC PROSECUTOR HIGH COURT GOA
Bench: Valmiki Menezes
Outcome: Dismissed

Summary

The High Court of Bombay at Goa has quashed the order taking cognizance of corruption and conspiracy charges against an Assistant Commissioner of Customs and three others, holding that the Special Judge had no jurisdiction to take cognizance without a prior sanction. Justice Valmiki Menezes also held that, on the material in the CBI's chargesheet, no offence under Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 was prima facie made out, so there was no point in sending the matter back to the trial court. The accused stand discharged.

The CBI alleged that between 2017 and 2019 Accused No. 1, then Assistant Commissioner of Customs, Goa, conspired with a private person, Accused No. 2, to defraud the Customs Department. He allegedly issued 114 work orders for furniture, electrical and renovation work at the Customs House, 80 of them without following the tender procedure, to four fictitious firms floated by Accused No. 2. Accused Nos. 3 and 4, employees of Accused No. 2, allegedly created forged documents to open bank accounts and obtain the work orders.

The Special Judge, South Goa at Margao, took cognizance on 29 April 2022 without any sanction under Section 19 of the Act. Sanction was granted on 5 May 2022, limited to the Act, and produced on 1 June 2022. By an order of 10 November 2023, the Special Judge discharged Accused Nos. 1, 2 and 4 of the IPC offences but directed a charge under the Act, and discharged Accused No. 3 completely. Three accused and the State challenged this.

The question before the court

Is an order taking cognizance of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act valid if the sanction under Section 19 is obtained only afterwards?
Was sanction under Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure needed for the IPC offences against a public servant, and can a Section 19 sanction be treated as one?
On the material in the chargesheet, was a case made out against the four accused?

What each side argued

For Accused No. 4: she is not a Government employee and could not be charged under the Act. The sanction was granted after cognizance, which vitiates the cognizance. Once the public servant is discharged, the charge against the private accused must fail. The chargesheet gave no specific facts showing she was privy to the conspiracy.
For Accused No. 1 (Accused No. 2 adopted these arguments): no previous sanction was obtained before cognizance, so under Nanjappa the Special Judge could only discharge him. There was no Section 197 sanction for the IPC offences. No demand or acceptance of gratification was shown for Section 7, and the ingredients of Section 13(1)(d) were not made out.
For the State (CBI): a Section 19 sanction covers the IPC offences too and should be treated as a Section 197 sanction. Since sanction was obtained after the chargesheet, the trial court should not have discharged the accused without assessing the material, and there was enough material to frame charges against all four.

The court's decision

On sanction, the Court noted that Accused No. 1, as a public servant, could be prosecuted under the Act only with a Section 19 sanction. On the date of cognizance there was none, and the sanction filed on 1 June 2022 came later. The order taking cognizance of 29 April 2022 was therefore without jurisdiction, and so was the order directing a charge under the Act. Applying the Supreme Court's decisions in State of Goa v. Babu Thomas and Nanjappa v. State of Karnataka, the Court held that cognizance taken without a valid sanction is cognizance without jurisdiction.

The sanction of 5 May 2022 covered only the Act, and there was no Section 197 sanction for the IPC offences. The State's argument that the Section 19 sanction should be treated as a Section 197 sanction was rejected. Because Accused Nos. 2 to 4 were roped in as co-conspirators with Accused No. 1, the facts against them were so related to his that, once he could not be charged, cognizance against them had to fall as well.

The Court then considered whether to follow Shivendranath Verma v. Union of India and let the trial court look at the chargesheet again in light of the later sanction. It declined, because the chargesheet itself would not support cognizance. Accused No. 1 was one member of a Purchase Committee, yet the other members, all Superintendents, were not made accused. The Commissioner of Customs, who took the final purchase decision, was neither made an accused nor examined, and the chargesheet cited no statement of pressure by Accused No. 1 on the other members. There was no imputation of participation against Accused No. 3. For Accused No. 4, the allegation that she opened an account to help submit quotations did not establish a conspiracy. None of the offences under Sections 7 and 13 was prima facie made out, and the case was bound to fail.

Order: The revision applications of Accused Nos. 1, 2 and 4 (Nos. 8 of 2024, 208 of 2026 and 207 of 2026) were allowed. The order taking cognizance of the offences under Sections 7 and 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Act and Sections 120-B read with 420, 468 and 471 of the IPC was quashed and they were discharged. The State's revision (No. 209 of 2026) was dismissed and the discharge of Accused No. 3 was confirmed.

Precedents referred to

State of Goa v. Babu Thomas, (2005) 8 SCC 130
Nanjappa v. State of Karnataka, (2015) 14 SCC 186
Shivendranath Verma v. Union of India, Criminal Appeal No. 3019 of 2024, order of 22 July 2024
State through CBI v. B.L. Verma, (1997) 10 SCC 772
Parkash Singh Badal v. State of Punjab, (2007) 1 SCC 1
A. Srinivasulu v. State, (2023) 13 SCC 705

Provisions referred to

Sections 7, 13(2) and 13(1)(d), Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988
Section 19, Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988
Section 197, Code of Criminal Procedure
Sections 120-B, 420, 468 and 471, Indian Penal Code

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Official source: High Court of Bombay. The PDF above is a copy from an open dataset of the court's public records.

This summary is prepared for general assistance only. It may contain errors and is not legal advice — rely on the full judgment.

Corruption Prevention Of Corruption Act Sanction For Prosecution Criminal Procedure

Supreme Court ·25 Sep 2026 ·Criminal Procedure

Supreme Court: Accused in a CBI case may inspect unrelied documents and seek specific ones at trial; stage depends on the document

The question: At what stage can an accused obtain documents the prosecution has not relied upon: at framing of charges, or later in the trial?

The Supreme Court on 25 September 2026 set aside orders of a CBI Special Judge in Ranchi that had directed the agency to produce a list of documents sought by an accused at the stage of framing of charges. A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran did not decide the wider question of whether an accused can demand 'unrelied upon' documents at that stage. It proceeded on the premise that an accused is entitled to the documents available with the prosecuting agency to shape his defence, held that the stage at which they can be sought has to be looked at document by document, and laid down a practical route for each category sought. The respondent, Anil Dixit, an accused in a case registered by the CBI (RC 12A/2014-R), had applied under Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for ten categories of documents. They included seizure memos, the CBI's daily diary, FIR and letter dispatch registers for October and November 2014, the source information report and its verification, all documents seized but not relied upon in the charge sheet, minutes of several Building Committee meetings, videography of evaluation committee meetings, the minutes of a meeting on 21 January 2012, the expression of interest and technical bid, and the appointment files of two architect firms that were named in the FIR but not charge-sheeted. The Special Judge No. 1, CBI, Ranchi, allowed the application on 21 September 2019. The CBI filed a compliance report producing some documents, resisting others and stating that some were not in its possession. A further application led to an order of 18 July 2022, which the impugned order affirmed. The CBI then came to the Supreme Court.

Disposed of Crl.A. No. 4618/2026