The Top Court of India set aside the decision of the Chhattisgarh high court quashing FIRs lodged under the Prevention of Corruption Act against former Principal Secretary Aman Singh and his wife Yasmin Singh.

The couple alleged that they had assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

The Supreme Court of India ordered the Chattisgarh government to investigate former Principal Secretary Aman Singh. The bench of the Apex Court headed by Justices Ravindra Bhat and Dipankar Dutta underlined that merely because a new political dispensation has booked members of the previous regime under anti-corruption laws, the investigation cannot be termed mala fide.

“We can say without fear of contradiction, it is not in all cases in our country that an individual, who is accused of acts of omission/ commission punishable under the P.C. Act but has the blessings of the ruling dispensation, is booked by the police and made to face prosecution. If, indeed, in such a case (where a prosecution should have been but has not been launched) the succeeding political dispensation initiates steps for launching prosecution against such an accused but he/ she is allowed to go scot-free, despite there being materials against him/ her, merely on the ground that the action initiated by the current regime is mala fide, in the sense that it is either to settle scores with the earlier regime or to wreak vengeance against the individual, in such an eventuality, we are constrained to observe that it is criminal justice that would be the casualty,” the Supreme Court said. 

“To maintain probity in the system of governance as well as to ensure that societal pollutants are weeded out at the earliest, it would be eminently desirable if the high courts maintain a hands-off approach and not quash a first information report pertaining to ‘corruption’ cases, especially at the stage of the investigation, even though certain elements of strong-arm tactics of the ruling dispensation might be discernible,” the Supreme Court said.

“We quite appreciate that there could be cases of innocent public servants being entangled in investigations arising out of motivated complaints and the consequent mental agony, emotional pain and social stigma that they would have to encounter in the process, but this small price has to be paid if there is to be a society governed by the rule of law,” the Court said.

Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani who appeared for Aman Singh and Yasmin Singh had argued that Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel had initiated action against the former bureaucrats for causing “unnecessary harassment” to the previous government.