INDIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Priyank Ladoia, Asif Ahmed, Puneet Dhanoa and Utkarsh Routh, AZB & Partners
P Shanthi Pugazhenthi v the State, 2025 INSC 674 In this judgment, the Supreme Court held that a per - son who is not a public servant can be convicted for abetting a disproportionate-assets offence under the PCA by applying Section 109 IPC (abetment) read with Section 13 (1)(e) and 13 (2) PCA, as the PCA does not exclude the IPC’s general abetment provisions. The Court explained that knowingly allowing one’s name or bank accounts to be used to hold a public servant’s illicit assets amounts to “intentional aiding” and can attract abetment liability. Centre For Public Interest Litigation v Union Of India, WP (C) No 1373/2018 The Supreme Court recently reserved a judgment in a writ petition challenging the constitutional validity of Section 17A of the PCA (introduced through an amendment in 2018), which stipulated that sanction for prosecution must be obtained prior to investigating public officials for actions undertaken in the course of their official duties. 7.6 Level of Sanctions Imposed As stated in 5.2 Guidelines Applicable to the Assess- ment of Penalties , there is no formal sentencing poli - cy in India. Consequently, courts have wide discretion in matters concerning sentencing of the accused. A number of broad guidelines have been outlined by the Supreme Court with respect to the awarding of sen - tences to accused persons, including consideration of the principles of proportionality and deterrence, as well as the following: • past antecedents of the accused; • their mental and physical health at the time of the offence; • the role played in the commission of the offence; and • their socio-economic background.
cial organisations. Section 9 of the PCA has therefore been amended to criminalise the act of bribery as well as the attempt to bribe a public official by a commer - cial organisation. The amendment provides that a commercial organisa - tion can claim a valid defence if it has implemented adequate anti-corruption procedures as per statutory guidelines. However, since the government has not issued guidelines under Section 9, companies must adopt their own internal anti-bribery policies, codes or conduct guidelines aligned with international best practices to ensure employee compliance and aware - ness. Failure to do so makes the organisation ineligi - ble for the Section 9 defence and liable to prosecution under the PCA. 8.2 Compliance Guidelines and Best Practices While the PCA itself does not explicitly lay out detailed guidelines for compliance programmes, it does pro - vide a framework that encourages organisations to establish robust anti-corruption measures, including expectations for ethical conduct and best practices to prevent bribery and corruption. Please see 8.1 Com- pliance Obligations for the mandatory practices pro - vided under the Act. 8.3 Compliance Monitorships There is no direct corporate monitoring mechanism within the PCA. However, the enforcement authorities can obtain information pertaining to bribery and cor - ruption through company auditors. As per Section 139 of the Companies Act, every company is mandated to appoint an auditor in its first annual general meeting, who is responsible for conducting audits in accord - ance with the auditing and accounting standards pre - scribed under Section 133 of the Companies Act. The recognised authorities on whose recommendations the Central Government prescribes these auditing standards are the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the National Financing Reporting Authority (NFRA). In light of the specific auditors’ duty under Section 143 (12) of the Companies Act, the ICAI states in its auditing handbook of reporting fraud that an auditor is mandated to report bribery, money laundering, cor -
8. Compliance Expectations 8.1 Compliance Obligations
The PCA as originally enacted did not expressly pro - vide for any duties to prevent corruption. However, parliament amended the PCA in 2018 such that its application has been extended to include commer -
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