previous sanction of the Government, as contemplated under Section 196 of the Code, the court would not take cognizance of the alleged offence and consequently, would discharge the accused. The reliance placed on some of the observations made by Their Lordships of the Superme Court of India, in the case of State of Karnataka and another Vs. Pastor P. Raju (AIR 2006 SC 2825) , in support of such a novel submission, is totally misplaced. There, the question that arose before Their Lordships of the Supreme Court was, whether the investigation into an offence punishable under Section 153B of the IPC would be bad in the absence of a sanction as contemplated under Section 196(1-A) of the Code. In that case, the High Court had quashed the investigation on the ground that it was bad on account of the investigating agency not having obtained previous sanction of the Government. Their Lordships of the Supreme Court of India held that, the question of sanction would come at the stage of taking of cognizance of the offence and not at the time of its registration and investigation. The observations made in para 10 of the reported judgment clearly lay down the reasoning of Their Lordships, namely, that, the question of sanction would not arise before completion of investigation and collection of evidence. These observations cannot be interpreted to mean that even after the completion of investigation and at the time of filing charge sheet, there would be no necessity of any sanction, and that, a charge sheet could be filed in the court without obtaining sanction. As a matter of fact, if that would be the position, there would be no occasion to provide that the period required for obtaining sanction to be excluded from computing the period of limitation, as has been done by enacting Section 470 of the Code.
