(1.) The present petition has been preferred to call for the records and quash the proceedings in Crime No.RCMA/1/2013/A0028 on the file of the Inspector of Police, CBI/ACB/Chennai, insofar as it relates to the petitioner herein.
(2.) The respondent registered a case on 27.6.13 for the offences u/s 120 (B) r/w 420 IPC and 13 (2) r/w 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the customs officials and others. The said case relates to import of drugs by the accused without obtaining proper registration certificate and without the requisite drug licence from the concerned authority and, thus caused wrongfull loss to the exchequer and, thereby, made a wrongful gain and enriched themselves. However, the name of the petitioner as also two other persons were not shown as accused in the FIR impugned herein. In the bail application moved before this Court in Crl. O.P. No.22489/14, this Court granted bail to the accused therein on condition of deposit of the amount of Rs.14,092,000/-, which was deposited by the accused. In anticipation of sanction u/s 19 of the PC Act, charge sheet was laid against public servants, viz., A-4 to A-8 in the said case for the offences mentioned above, but sanction was refused by the Department.
(3.) In the above scenario, for want of sanction, the Special Court for CBI Cases returned the charge sheet directing the respondent to produce the sanction order along with the charge sheet. Crl. O.P. Nos. 23523, 23530, 23531 and 23533/18 were filed by the State against the said return of the charge sheet and this Court, vide order dated 1.11.18, directed the trial court to consider the charge sheet with regard to the requirement of sanction keeping in mind issue No.2 as formulated in the decision of the Apex Court in L.Narayanasamy - Vs - State of Karnataka & Ors., 2016 9 SCC 598.