THANGAVEL Vs. J K K ANGAPPA CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition is filed seeking the permission for the petitioner to assist the prosecution in Criminal Revision Case No. 310 of 1992 on the file of this Court.

(2.) THE petitioner herein appeared to have been the complainant before the trial court and upon whose complaint, a case was taken cognizance of by the trial court against the revision petitioners who are the accused, therein and upon whose petition for discharge, the trial court was not inclined to accept their request and hence dismissed their application for discharge. Aggrieved at this, the Criminal Revision Case No. 310 of 1992 was preferred and in Crl.M.P.No. 5431 of 1992, interim stay of all further proceedings in S.C.No. 51 of 1991 on the file of the Assistant Sessions Judge, Sankari, has been obtained and such stay proceedings are pending disposal before this Court. However, in the meantime, the complainant before the trial court, who set the law in motion has filed the above application seeking permission to assist the prosecution in the above revision.

(3.) A casual reading of Sec. 301(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure may, in my considered view, have prompted the petitioner to file this application for seeking the permission to the petitioner to assist the Public Prosecutor to conduct the revision before this Court. The words "with the permission of the court" employed in Sub-sec.(2) of Sec. 301 of the Criminal Procedure Code is perhaps the concept prompted the petitioner to file this petition. However, the minimum, understanding of a reading of the entire Sub-secs.(1) and (2) of Sec. 301 of the Code of Criminal Procedure makes it abundantly clear that to prosecute any person and conduct the prosecution the Public Prosecutor or the Assistant Public Prosecutor shall alone conduct in a Court of Law and if in any case a private person instructed a pleader to prosecute the case so effectively and efficaciously that pleader with such instructions given by the private party may act only under the direction of the Public Prosecutor or the Assistant Public Prosecutor as contemplated by law, and with such instructions and directions if the Public Prosecutor or Assistant Public Prosecutor wants to file a written argument, can do so with the permission of the court. Therefore, the pleader so instructed by the private party does not have an automatic right to conduct the prosecution directly or filing any written argument without having any regard to any Public Prosecutor or Assistant Public Prosecutor conducting the prosecution. The Pleader so instructed has the right only to assist the Public Prosecutor concerned in conducting the prosecution effectively and efficaciously and to the satisfaction of his party concerned. With regard to this position, the learned counsel Mr. Sridharan has frankly conceded that he has no dispute over the same. In this regard, the petitioner cannot be deemed to have any legal obstacle in engaging a lawyer of his own or pleader to assist the Public Prosecutor in conducting the case in the above revision and have an effective and efficacious disposal of the case in question; and accordingly no special permission is necessary.