NEW DELHI, Nov 23 � Government today told the Supreme Court that the question of granting sanction for prosecution of former Telecom Minister A Raja in the 2G spectrum scam did not arise as no complaint was filed before a competent court.
Attorney General GE Vahanvati, who was arguing on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy seeking his sanction for prosecution of Raja in the case, said that the request was �misconceived and premature�.
However, this was contested by Swamy, who maintained that he can directly approach the Prime Minister for seeking prosecution of a minister while he also has the right to go to a court.
During day-long arguments on the case in which the PMO was asked to file an affidavit on the alleged inaction on Swamy�s plea, the court raised the issues like what is the reasonable time-limit for granting the sanction.
�There is no question of consideration of sanction when no complaint was filed at all. It is a settled law that there is no question of sanction merely on the institution of the complaint,� Vahanvati told a bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly. �Till date, the petitioner (Swamy) has not even filed a complaint in the competent court and in such circumstances, the question of sanction cannot and does not arise,� he contended.
The government�s senior-most law officer said the request �made by Swamy in his letter dated Nov 29, 2008 was entirely misconceived. He sought sanction for prosecution even without filing a complaint before the competent court�.
The AG said the stage for grant of sanction is when the court wants to consider the question of whether to take cognisance of a complaint.
Explaining that the process of taking cognisance is different from initiation of proceedings, the law officer said, �The cognisance is a condition precedent to the initiation of proceedings by the magistrate or the judge.
�Cognisance is taken of cases and not of persons. In other words, cognisance means the judicial hearing of the matter,� the Attorney General argued.
Thus, no question of taking cognisance arises unless there is a complaint before the court, Vahanvati said, adding before taking cognisance, the accused can contend that sanction is required and if so the magistrate before taking cognisance must call for sanction. � PTI
