Supreme Court: public prosecutor in trial court can’t appear in High Court

Giving this ruling, a three-judge bench of Justices Dipak Misra, R.K. Agrawal and Prafulla C. Pant also clarified that once a criminal trial was shifted from one state to another, it was the responsibility of the transferee state to appoint a public prosecutor even if the prosecuting agency continued to be the transferor state.

Writing the 50-page judgment, Justice Misra quoted the Karnataka rules relating to appointment of public prosecutors and said, “The relevant rule clarifies that if any counsel is to be appointed for the purpose of an appeal, the state government may do so after consulting the authorities mentioned therein. There is nothing on record that the 4th respondent (Bhavani Singh) was appointed to defend the prosecution in appeal in the high court.”

In this case, the bench said the authority for Bhavani Singh to appear before the high court was fundamentally founded on the interpretation of section 301 of Cr.P.C. according to which a public prosecutor appointed for a case would mean that he could represent in the same case even in the appellate court.

Rejecting this stand, the bench said, “The appointment of a public prosecutor, as envisaged under section 24(1) CrPC in the high court is different than the appointment of a public prosecutor for the district courts; and that the Notification appointing the 4th respondent did not enable him to represent the state of Karnataka in appeal.”

The bench said, “Though the appointment of the 4th respondent is bad in law, yet there is no justification to direct for de novo hearing of the appeal, regard being had to the duties of the appellate judge, especially in a case pertaining to the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.”