Chandigarh, Feb. 21 -- The Union government has granted prosecution sanction against former Punjab chief secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua, a 1988-batch IAS officer, in a 16-year-old corruption case. The decision by the Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions, on February 11 came three months after the Punjab government, prompted by a stern high court directive, forwarded the case to the Centre. The Union ministry order, a copy of which HT has seen, said: "The competent authority... considered that sufficient evidence has been brought on record to establish a prima-facie case for granting sanction under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act." Janjua served as the state's top bureaucrat from 2022-2023 under the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. Following his retirement, he was appointed as the chairman of the Punjab Transparency and Accountability Commission. The case dates back to November 9, 2009, when the Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Janjua, the then director of industries and commerce, for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs.2 lakh from Ludhiana-based industrialist Tulsi Ram Mishra. In 2025, the Punjab and Haryana high court imposed a penalty of Rs.50,000 on the state for failing to submit the case to the Centre. "This court cannot shut its eyes to the serious allegations against the petitioner," the court had said....