Karnataka High Court: Section 17A of the PC Act applies even to pre-2018 decisions if the FIR comes after

The Karnataka High Court at Dharwad quashed a Lokayukta FIR against municipal officers of Ballary Municipal Corporation for want of prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The FIR, registered in 2024, alleged misappropriation of about Rs.1.55 crore in municipal works carried out between 2012 and 2017, before Section 17A came into force on 26 July 2018. The petitioners argued that no enquiry, inquiry or investigation into a public servant's official decisions or recommendations can proceed without the previous approval of the competent authority that Section 17A requires. The question was whether that requirement applies when the decisions under investigation predate the provision but the investigation itself begins after it.

Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde held that Section 17A is procedural rather than substantive law: it creates no new offence or liability, only an additional safeguard before investigation can begin. Procedural provisions are ordinarily presumed to operate retroactively unless a contrary intent appears, and nothing in Section 17A's text or its 2018 objects and reasons confines it to post-2018 decisions. The court therefore held that Section 17A applies to every investigation commencing after 26 July 2018, whatever the date of the underlying decision. It quashed the FIR for the missing approval but directed the investigating officer to seek it and proceed afresh, and rejected the separate plea that an eight-to-ten-year delay in lodging the complaint barred the investigation, since allegations of public-money misappropriation are not readily defeated by delay and laches.