Gurugram: In the past three years, the Haryana government, more often than not, has found reasons to deny sanctions for either investigating or prosecuting IAS officers facing corruption charges, causing the cases to collapse in court.
IAS officers who were arrested or jailed never faced conviction or trial. Some were let off because the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested them without first seeking the mandatory government approval required under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Others were discharged because the government refused to grant prosecution sanction when the matter went to court. The result, in both situations, was the same—the officer walked away.
In the wake of the state government allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct an enquiry into eight IAS officers under Section 17-A, in connection with the Rs 645 crore IDFC Bank scam, ThePrint looked at its record.
Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, inserted by a 2018 amendment, bars any police officer from conducting an enquiry or investigation into an alleged offence by a public servant—for acts connected to their official duties—without prior approval from the competent authority. For an IAS officer, the competent authority is the state government.
Section 17-A was designed to protect civil servants from frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions. However, critics argue it has become a shield that state governments can deploy at will to protect officers they favour.
Permission to prosecute under Section 19 of the PC Act comes at a later stage: it requires the competent authority’s sanction before a court can even take cognisance of the offence and proceed to trial.
For matters not coming under the PC Act, the investigating agency requires permission to prosecute a public servant under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It has now been replaced with Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita.
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A pattern of denials
The pattern of denying sanctions for either investigating or prosecuting IAS officers is hard to miss. At least eight IAS officers in Haryana skirted legal troubles in less than three years, after the state government refused sanctions.
Take the case of IAS officer Vijay Singh Dahiya. A 2001-batch officer, Dahiya was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in October 2023 in a bribery case during his term as Haryana Skill Department Commissioner.
He spent weeks in judicial custody, his bail plea dismissed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which noted that his complicity was “writ large” in the matter. Yet, when the ACB sought a prosecution sanction against him, the Haryana government dismissed it. He was subsequently discharged by the trial court.
Similarly, 2009-batch IAS officer Jaivir Singh Arya was arrested on 11 October 2023, in connection with an alleged bribe demanded for the posting of a woman officer in the Haryana State Warehousing Corporation. He remained in jail for over a month and a half before being granted regular bail on 28 November 2023.
When the ACB sought prosecution sanction in his case, the government denied it. A Panchkula trial court discharged Arya in November 2025 after the state declined to grant the sanction, with the investigating agency itself informing the court it was not inclined to file just a challan against him.
In the cases of IAS officer Ashok Khemka, arguably Haryana’s most transferred officer, as well as Sanjeev Verma, the government denied post-facto sanction under Section 17-A after FIRs had already been registered. The FIRs themselves, sources say, had been lodged without first obtaining the mandatory government approval. The cross-FIRs against Khemka and Verma, they add, were seen as more of a result of a mutual tussle.
The Faridabad Municipal Corporation ‘scam’ possibly offers the most layered picture of how Section 17-A has played out. The Haryana government turned down proposals from the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau seeking permission to investigate four IAS officers, in connection with alleged financial irregularities of nearly Rs 200 crore.
The officers—Sonal Goel, Anita Yadav, Yash Garg and Mohammed Shayin—served as MC Commissioners of Faridabad at different times. The government’s rejection extended to investigations surrounding at least five FIRs registered between 2022 and 2023. All the FIRs were linked to alleged financial irregularities and inflated project costs in civic works.
In the cases of Goel and Yadav, the government initially granted sanction for a probe under Section 17-A of the PC Act. But Goel challenged the decision before the Punjab and Haryana High Court and obtained a stay. With his matter continuing to pend in the high court, permission to investigate all four IAS officers related to the alleged scam was denied.
Denials on ‘firm ground’
Asked about the pattern, a retired IAS officer told ThePrint that in most of these cases, the sanction denials were, procedurally at least, on firm ground.
“The state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau booked and arrested Vijay Singh Dahiya and Jaivir Singh Arya, without first obtaining permission under Section 17-A of the PC Act. When the ACB sought permission to prosecute them, it was rightfully declined because the agency did not follow the procedure,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.
He made the same point about Khemka and Verma.
“In their cases too, FIRs were registered without first seeking government permission. Later, the investigating agency applied for post-facto approval, which was rightly declined. Such permissions are to be obtained before proceedings, not post-facto,” he said.
Asked about the ‘scam’ in Faridabad, the officer said since Sonal Goel had obtained a stay from the high court and the others’ cases rested on similar facts, the stay would likely cover all of them.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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