The Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday expressed its displeasure over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) being persistent on engaging its employee as counsel to conduct an appeal preferred by it against the acquittal of 17 accused from the 2007 Dinakaran newspaper office attack case though the Code of Criminal Procedure requires only a practising lawyer to be appointed as a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP).
A Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran disagreed with CBI advocate N. Nagendran that he was competent to conduct the appeal and said that a fulltime employee of the investigating agency would not be able to take independent decisions on legal issues involved in a case without the concurrence of his employer and hence he would become ineligible to appear as a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) before the High Court.
The judges pointed out that Section 25 of the Code of Criminal Procedure does not stipulate that Assistant Public Prosecutors appointed to conduct cases before lower courts should be practising lawyers. However, Section 24 (8) states that Special Public Prosecutors appointed to conduct cases in High Courts should have been practising as lawyers for at least 10 years. “Therefore, you can appear before Magistrates not before the High Court,” Mr. Justice Nagamuthu told Mr. Nagendran.
Later, the Division Bench adjourned the hearing on the bail applications filed by some of the accused, who were arrested following non-bailable arrest warrants issued by the High Court in January for not cooperating with it in disposing of the appeal, to September 30 to enable the CBI to appoint a competent lawyer as a Special Public Prosecutor to conduct the appeal. “Otherwise, we will proceed with the hearing of the appeal without your assistance,” the senior judge warned.