MP High Court Upholds Decision Of State Govt To Appoint All Public Prosecutors As Special Public Prosecutors Under SC/ST Act

Justice Atul Sreedharan was essentially dealing with a writ petition filed by a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) under the SC/ST Act, whereby she was challenging the order passed by the state government appointing all the Public Prosecutors and Assistant Public Prosecutors as SPPs U/S 15 of SC/ST Act.

The Petitioner submitted that Section 15(2) of the SC/ST Act provides for the appointment of an Exclusive Public Prosecutor, meaning thereby, there cannot be more than one SPP appearing before the Special Court. Thus, she argued that the impugned order was in gross violation of the legislative intent reflected U/S 15(2). She further submitted that as per Section 15(1), even a SPP who is to be appointed for a Special Court cannot be appointed by way of a general order passed by the state, as was the impugned order. Instead, she contended, the order appointing SPP must specify the name of such person, the post and the district that they'd be serving.

Per contra, the state argued that the impugned order was only for the appointment of SPP, as the phrase used is Vishesh Lok Abhiyojak instead of Ananya Vishesh Lok Abhiyojak, which would be the Hindi equivalent of an "Exclusive Special Public Prosecutor." Therefore, it was submitted that the petition itself was unsustainable as it had been filed on a wrong appreciation of the impugned order.

The Court was not convinced with regard to the locus standi of the Petitioner, noting that she had to demonstrate as to how she was a "person aggrieved" or how the impugned order had infringed upon her right, either legal or constitutional. The Court added that if she was of the opinion that the impugned order is in violation of the provisions under the SC/ST Act, she should've filed a PIL instead. The Court therefore, opined that her petition was liable to be dismissed on this particular ground itself. However, it noted that there were certain legal aspects raised by the Petitioner, which it felt were essential to deal with.

The Court did not accept the argument of the Petitioner that U/S 15 (1), a general order cannot be passed for appointing the existing Public Prosecutors and Assistant Public Prosecutors as SPPs to appear before the Special Court. The Court noted that the SC/ST Act did not provide for a procedure as envisaged by the Petitioner. The Court observed-

The act does not provide for a procedure as envisaged by the Ld. Counsel for the petitioner. If specific orders had to be passed by the State Government with regard to the appointment of Public Prosecutors by name, post and district, then that should have been spelt out in the act itself. Where the act itself is silent of any such procedure to be adopted, the same does not infringe upon the right of the State to pass the impugned order.

The Court also attracted its attention to the Amendment of 2015 in the SC/ST Act. It observed that the Amendment was brought into effect owing to the increasing rate of violence against the SC/ST communities, wherein one of the reasons cited for the rising number of atrocities was "delay in trial and lower conviction rate". It was in this context, the Court noted, that the impugned order passed by the state must be analysed-

If there was only one Special Public Prosecutor (hereinafter referred to as the "SPP") before each Special Court, in an era where the number of cases are increasing, then the focus of the SPP would be divided among several cases that are listed each day before the Special Courts. Thus, the level of preparation, the efficacy of conducting the trial, the examination of witnesses and final arguments on behalf of the prosecution, all become suspect on account of pressure on a single SPP. Besides, if the SPP is on leave, for whatever reason, then all the cases before the Special Court on that particular date get adjourned leaving the witnesses susceptible to influence of the accused persons, which would result in a delay in the trial process which is much against the legislative intent for the trial of these cases, which demand an expeditious conduct of these trials on a day-to-day basis.

The Court held that if the impugned order was implemented in the right spirit, it would actually complement the legislative intent behind the SC/ST Act-

In the light of the above, if the impugned order is given effect to and consequently, all the prosecutors of the district are appointed as Special Public Prosecutors, then the absence of one Special Public Prosecutor on a given day will not hamper the progress of the trial as there is another to step in and continue with the conduct of the trial. Also important is the fact that with more Special Public Prosecutors, the pending cases can be distributed equitably, and each Special Public Prosecutor would have lesser number of cases to deal with greater focus and dedication which would perhaps result in a better conviction rate in these category of cases.

Thus, it is evident that the enforcement of the impugned order would actually give greater impetus to clause 2 of the legislative intent reflected in the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Amending Act, with specific reference to "delays in trial and low conviction rate".

Considering the submission put forth by the state that the impugned order was only for appointment of SPPs before Special Courts and not Exclusive SPPs before Exclusive Special Courts, the Court held that submission by the Petitioner with regard to Section 15(2) doesn't stand ground.

With the aforesaid observations, the Court dismissed the petition.

Case Title: Smt. Krishna Prajapati v. State of M.P.

Case citation: 2022 LiveLaw (MP) 35

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