Validity of an existing prosecution sanction must be challenged during trial, not at the pre-trial stage.

The applicant, an ex-army official, filed a petition under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. to challenge a prosecution sanction order dated 11.05.2016 and the subsequent charge-sheet dated 23.05.2016

The charges involved Section 120-B read with Sections 409, 420, 468, 471, 460, 477, and 201 of the IPC; Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988; and Sections 65 and 66 of the Information Technology Act

The respondent-CBI raised a preliminary objection, noting that the petition was filed on 30.01.2026, nearly a decade after the sanction was granted, and that the trial is currently in progress with the sanctioning officer already examined as PW-1

1. Whether the validity of a prosecution sanction order can be challenged under Section 482 Cr.P.C. at the pre-trial or mid-trial stage when the order exists but is alleged to be invalid

2. Whether a challenge to a prosecution sanction order can be entertained after an unexplained delay of nearly ten years while the trial is already in progress

The court primarily applied the principle established in Parkash Singh Badal v. State of Punjab, which distinguishes between the total absence of sanction (which can be agitated at the threshold) and the alleged invalidity of an existing sanction due to non-application of mind (which must be raised during trial)

Dinesh Kumar v. Chairman Airport Authority of India, which held that grounds for invalidity, such as the competence of the authority or non-availability of material, fall within the category of challenges to be raised during trial

CBI v. Ashok Kumar Aggarwal confirmed that the validity of sanction should not be examined during the inquiry or pre-trial stage

The court observed that since a prosecution sanction order actually exists in this case, the applicant's challenge relates to its validity rather than its absence

Under the settled law in Parkash Singh Badal and Dinesh Kumar, such questions of validity or competence are matters of evidence to be determined by the trial court

The court distinguished the applicant’s reliance on State Inspector of Police v. Surya Sankaran Karri, noting that the Supreme Court’s observations in that case were made during an appeal against a final conviction, not at a pre-trial stage

Furthermore, the court emphasized the significant procedural lapse of a ten-year delay in filing the petition, noting that the trial had already advanced to the examination of prosecution witnesses

It held that the challenge to the validity of the sanction is a plea that must be raised before the trial court at the appropriate stage of the proceedings