Sanction for prosecution in 'Offences Against the State' in India: The prerogative of the political and the withdrawal of the judicial.

'Offences Against the State (OAS) claim a distinct character within criminal law tied to the assumption of threat they pose to the very existence of state. This paper examines the distinctiveness of these offences through an analysis of a peculiar criminal law procedure of obtaining sanction for prosecution. The legal provision on 'sanction for prosecution' for OAS mandates the prior approval of the government before an accused can be brought to trial in a court. The deferral of the judicial process till the executive consents to trial, raises the following question-within a constitutional order governed by the principle of separation of powers, how does the 'political' intersect the domain of the 'judicial', in matters of prosecution? This paper interrogates this question through an analysis of the legal provision for granting sanction and the jurisprudence of sanction in India, to understand the relationship between the executive and the judiciary and its bearing on the constitutional principle of separation of powers. Constructing a theoretical framework of the 'rationality question' delving into the intention of the law, and the 'consequentiality question' exploring its effects, the paper shows how the judiciary cedes space for the political to make inroads into the domain of the judicial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]