Section 17A Does Not Bar FIR; Bribe-Demand Probes Need No Prior Approval: Rajasthan High Court

The petitioner, a public servant, was booked in FIR No. 407/2021 at the Anti Corruption Bureau police station, Udaipur, under Sections 7 and 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and sought its quashing under Section 482 CrPC (para 1). His grounds were that no previous approval under Section 17A had been taken, and that the FIR was a second FIR, registered on material collected while investigating the earlier FIR No. 183/2021 on interlinked facts, relying on T.T. Antony and Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah (para 2). The Public Prosecutor replied that mobile phones seized in that investigation had revealed further bribe transactions, a distinct series of offending acts (para 3).

The Court accepted that, as a catena of decisions including T.T. Antony and Amitbhai Shah settles, a second FIR cannot be registered on the same facts (para 5). Section 17A, inserted by Act No. 16 of 2018, stops a police officer from undertaking any enquiry, inquiry or investigation into offences relatable to a public servant’s recommendations or decisions in discharge of official functions without the concerned government’s previous approval; it does not prohibit registering an FIR (paras 5-6). Demand and acceptance of a bribe are not acts relatable to such recommendations or decisions, so the embargo does not apply to their investigation (para 5). Even in cases covered by Section 17A, the FIR may be registered and the Investigating Officer must then seek approval before investigating (para 6). By analogy, Section 19(1), proviso (i), lets a private person file a complaint for offences under Sections 7, 11, 13 and 15 and then seek a direction for prosecution sanction (para 7). On the Investigating Officer’s factual report, the phones seized in the trap case revealed new bribe demands and payments linked to different construction activities: separate incriminating acts, not a second FIR on the same facts (paras 8-9).