To make public prosecutors eligible for district judiciary posts, the Supreme Court said they would be treated as advocates, despite the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) prohibition against lawyers who are full-time salaried employees from practising as advocates.

Rule 49 of the BCI’s rules on professional standards provides:

An Advocate shall not be a full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise and shall, on taking up any such employment intimate the fact to the Bar Council on whose rolls his name appears, and shall thereupon cease to practise as an Advocate so long as he continues in such employment.

The bench, led by justice RM Lodha, partially negated this requirement and said:

The factum of employment is not material but the key aspect is whether such employment is consistent with his practising as an advocate. Or, in other words, whether pursuant to such employment, he continues to act and/or plead in the courts. If the answer is yes, then despite employment he continues to be an advocate.

The SC was deciding appeals filed against the orders of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana which had quashed the appointments of certain additional district and sessions judges on the basis of rule 49 in May 2010. [Indian Express]