The Kerala High Court has held that the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has the authority to register a case under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988, against the employees of the Central government and conduct an investigation into it.
Justice Kauser Edappagath further observed that there was no special provision in either PCA or Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946, excluding or preventing the State police or a special agency of the State from investigating cases relating to corruption of Central government employees. None of the provisions in PC Act or DSPE Act authorises CBI or Central Vigilance Commission or any other Central government agency alone to investigate in matters relating to the Central government employees. In the absence of a specific provision in either Acts divesting the power of regular police authorities from investigating into the offences under any other competent law, it could not be said that the power of the State police or a special agency of the State to register a crime and investigate into the offence allegedly committed by any Central government employee in their State was taken away.
The court , therefore, held that “the VACB, being a specially constituted body to investigate bribery, corruption and misconduct mainly under the PC Act is always clothed with the authority to investigate offences involving corruption that take place within the State, whether it is committed by a Central government employee or a State Government employee”.
The court made the observations recently while setting aside a Kottayam vigilance court’s order discharging three employees of the North Malabar Gramin Bank, Thalayolaparambu, in a case relating to misappropriation of the project amount to the tune of ₹1,85,000 allotted for Thalayolaparambu gram panchayat.
Special public prosecutor for VACB A. Rajesh submitted that the PCA does not exclude or prevent the State police or a special agency of the State such as VACB from investigating cases relating to corruption committed by the public servants of the Central government. Therefore, the orders of the Vigilance court was unsustainable in law.
