Supreme Court Reserves Verdict on Section 17A Prior-Approval Provision

The bench will assess whether government approval before probing public servants strikes the right balance between protecting honest officers from frivolous complaints without undermining corruption investigations.

Overview

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and K V Viswanathan has concluded oral arguments on the constitutionality of Section 17A and formally reserved judgment.
The justices probed if the challenge was to the notion of pre-screening itself or to vesting sanction power in the executive, suggesting any misuse issues might require separate implementation reforms.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the prior-approval clause fosters “fearless governance” by shielding up to 60% of Central Bureau of Investigation referrals from baseless enquiries.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan countered that the government effectively becomes its own judge by rejecting roughly 41% of sanction requests and proposed transferring approval authority to an independent body.
The court signaled it must determine if the pre-investigation sanction unduly impedes genuine probes or appropriately filters out vexatious allegations against honest bureaucrats.