Sections 24–25A CrPC vs Sections 18–20 BNSS — Public Prosecutors, Assistant Public Prosecutors and the Directorate of Prosecution

In India, Sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) replaced Sections 24, 25 and 25A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) from 1 July 2024. The seven- and ten-year practice rules for prosecutors are unchanged; the Directorate of Prosecution gains district offices, Assistant Directors and a fifteen-year eligibility rule.

At a glance

These are procedural provisions, so the First Schedule classification columns used on offence pages do not apply.

What changed

Section 18 BNSS (CrPC 24)

• Expanded — Delhi proviso to 18(1): new words — "for National Capital Territory of Delhi, the Central Government shall, after consultation with the High Court of Delhi, appoint the Public Prosecutor or Additional Public Prosecutors for the purposes of this sub-section." The closing words of the main clause also read "on behalf of the Central Government or the State Government" where the CrPC read "or State Government" (Minor edit).
• Narrowed — 18(2): "for the purpose of conducting any case or class of cases in any district or local area" becomes "for the purpose of conducting any case in any district or local area". On a reading of the text, the Central Government's power under this sub-section now speaks only of "any case"; Section 18(8) still refers to "any case or class of cases" for Special Public Prosecutors.
• Identical — 18(3), (4), (5), (7) and (8) with its proviso: the district appointment, the District Magistrate's panel prepared "in consultation with the Sessions Judge", the bar on appointing anyone not on that panel, the seven-year rule and the ten-year rule for a Special Public Prosecutor carry the same words.
• Minor edit — 18(6): "Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (5)" becomes "Notwithstanding anything in sub-section (5)", and a comma is added after "for such appointment" in the proviso.
• Expanded — Explanation (b) to 18(6): "Prosecuting Officer" now covers a person appointed to perform the functions of a Public Prosecutor, "Special Public Prosecutor", Additional Public Prosecutor or Assistant Public Prosecutor "under this Sanhita". In Explanation (a), "the post of a Public Prosecutor" becomes "the post of Public Prosecutor" (Minor edit).
• Minor edit — 18(9): the period "in practice as a pleader" becomes "in practice as an advocate", and "this Code" becomes "this Sanhita".

Section 19 BNSS (CrPC 25)

• Identical — 19(1) and 19(2): the State Government's duty to appoint Assistant Public Prosecutors in every district, and the Central Government's power (formerly Section 25(1A)), carry the same words.
• Omitted — CrPC 25(2): "Save as otherwise provided in sub-section (3), no police officer shall be eligible to be appointed as an Assistant Public Prosecutor" has no free-standing counterpart.
• Modified — 19(3): the District Magistrate's ad hoc appointment now opens "Without prejudice to provisions contained in sub-sections (1) and (2)" and adds "after giving notice of fourteen days to the State Government".
• Modified — proviso to 19(3): "a police officer shall not be so appointed— (a) if he has taken any part in the investigation … or (b) if he is below the rank of Inspector" becomes "no police officer shall be eligible to be appointed as an Assistant Public Prosecutor, if he— (a) has taken any part in the investigation … or (b) is below the rank of Inspector".

Section 20 BNSS (CrPC 25A)

• Expanded — 20(1): besides a Directorate of Prosecution in the State (a Director and Deputy Directors), the State Government may establish "a District Directorate of Prosecution in every district consisting of as many Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors of Prosecution, as it thinks fit".
• Modified — 20(2): Section 25A(2) required ten years' practice and appointment "with the concurrence of the Chief Justice of the High Court". Section 20(2)(a) requires "not less than fifteen years" of practice or that the person "is or has been a Sessions Judge"; the concurrence requirement is not in the text. New 20(2)(b): an Assistant Director needs seven years' practice or to "has been a Magistrate of the first class".
• Minor edit — 20(3): administrative control of "the Head of the Home Department" becomes control of "the Home Department in the State".
• Expanded — 20(4) and 20(6): Assistant Directors are added to the chain of subordination; district prosecutors and Assistant Public Prosecutors are subordinate to "the Deputy Director of Prosecution or the Assistant Director of Prosecution".
• New — 20(7) to 20(10): statutory functions by punishment band (see "How it works").
• Minor edit — 20(5), 20(11) and 20(12): cross-references move from Section 24 to Section 18; sub-section (11) extends the notified "other powers and functions" to Assistant Directors; the Advocate General exclusion in 25A(8) is repeated as 20(12).

Statutory text (relevant extract)

Extract, Section 25A(2) CrPC (repealed from 1 July 2024):

A person shall be eligible to be appointed as a Director of Prosecution or a Deputy Director of Prosecution, only if he has been in practice as an advocate for not less than ten years and such appointment shall be made with the concurrence of the Chief Justice of the High Court.

Extract, Section 20(2) and (7) BNSS:

(2) A person shall be eligible to be appointed,— (a) as a Director of Prosecution or a Deputy Director of Prosecution, if he has been in practice as an advocate for not less than fifteen years or is or has been a Sessions Judge; (b) as an Assistant Director of Prosecution, if he has been in practice as an advocate for not less than seven years or has been a Magistrate of the first class.

(7) The powers and functions of the Director of Prosecution shall be to monitor cases in which offences are punishable for ten years or more, or with life imprisonment, or with death; to expedite the proceedings and to give opinion on filing of appeals.

Extract, proviso to Section 19(3) BNSS:

Provided that no police officer shall be eligible to be appointed as an Assistant Public Prosecutor, if he— (a) has taken any part in the investigation into the offence with respect to which the accused is being prosecuted; or (b) is below the rank of Inspector.

How it works

1. Who appoints whom (Section 18)

• High Court — the Central Government or the State Government, "after consultation with the High Court", appoints a Public Prosecutor and may appoint Additional Public Prosecutors (18(1)). For Delhi the Central Government appoints after consulting the High Court of Delhi (proviso).
• Central Government cases — one or more Public Prosecutors "for the purpose of conducting any case in any district or local area" (18(2)).
• District — the State Government appoints a Public Prosecutor and may appoint Additional Public Prosecutors (18(3)). The District Magistrate, in consultation with the Sessions Judge, prepares a panel (18(4)), and no one outside it may be appointed (18(5)) — unless the State has a "regular Cadre of Prosecuting Officers", in which case appointment is from the Cadre, with the panel as a fallback where no suitable Cadre member is available (18(6) and proviso).
• Special Public Prosecutor — for "any case or class of cases", a person with ten years' practice (18(8)).

2. Assistant Public Prosecutors (Section 19) conduct prosecutions "in the Courts of Magistrates". Where none is available for a particular case, the District Magistrate may appoint "any other person" in charge of that case, after fourteen days' notice to the State Government (19(3)).

3. The Directorate (Section 20) is optional — the State Government "may establish" it. Once established, sub-sections (7) to (9) divide the monitoring work:

Sub-section (10) adds that, notwithstanding (7) to (9), each of them has "the power to deal with and be responsible for all proceedings under this Sanhita".

4. Definition link: Section 2(1)(v) BNSS defines "Public Prosecutor" as "any person appointed under section 18", including a person acting under a Public Prosecutor's directions — the same shape as Section 2(u) CrPC, which pointed to Section 24.

What this means in practice

For the victim and the complainant's advocate

• Apply to the Court under the proviso to Section 18(8) BNSS for permission to engage an advocate to assist the prosecution. Under Section 338(2) BNSS that advocate acts "under the directions of the Public Prosecutor or Assistant Public Prosecutor" and may, with the Court's permission, submit written arguments after the evidence is closed.
• A request that the State appoint a Special Public Prosecutor goes to the State Government; the ten-year practice rule in Section 18(8) applies to the person proposed.

For the accused and defence advocate

• Check that the prosecutor who appears was appointed for that Court and that case. The Supreme Court's reading of the CrPC scheme in K. Anbazhagan (below) turned on the separate channels for High Court and district prosecutors, which Section 20(5) and (6) BNSS keep.
• Where an ad hoc Assistant Public Prosecutor appears under Section 19(3), the text requires fourteen days' notice to the State Government and bars a police officer who investigated the offence or is below the rank of Inspector.

For State governments and prosecution departments

• A State that establishes a Directorate now has a statutory division of monitoring by punishment band, and a Deputy Director has the function to "examine and scrutinise police report" (20(8)).
• Eligibility rules for Directors and Deputy Directors are fifteen years' practice or Sessions Judge service; on a reading of the text, appointments made after 1 July 2024 are measured against Section 20(2), not the ten-year rule and Chief Justice concurrence of Section 25A(2).

State amendments: the CrPC text as printed carries State amendments to Section 24 (Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh), Section 25 (Orissa) and Section 25A (Karnataka). This page covers the Gazette text of the BNSS only; any State amendment to Sections 18 to 20 BNSS was not checked.

Judgments that still matter

Rekha Murarka v. The State of West Bengal and Anr., [2019] 14 S.C.R. 106 (2019 INSC 1269) — 20 November 2019. Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and Deepak Gupta JJ. considered how far a victim's counsel engaged under the proviso to Section 24(8) CrPC may take part in a Sessions trial. The Court described the Public Prosecutor as "not a servant of the Government or the investigating agency" but "an officer of the Court" (para 8), read the proviso with Section 301 as "mutually complementary" (para 10), and held that the word "assist" gives the victim's counsel a secondary role (para 12.1). Such counsel "should ordinarily not be given the right to make oral arguments or examine and cross-examine witnesses", and may route questions through the Public Prosecutor (para 12.4). The Court upheld the dismissal of the victim's application to cross-examine after the Public Prosecutor (para 13). The proviso to Section 18(8) BNSS and Section 338(2) BNSS repeat the words the Court construed, so on a reading of the text the judgment bears directly on the BNSS provisions.

K. Anbazhagan v. State of Karnataka and Others, [2015] 7 S.C.R. 469 — 27 April 2015. A three-Judge Bench (Dipak Misra, R.K. Agrawal and Prafulla C. Pant JJ.; judgment by Dipak Misra J.) held that the provisions it set out — Section 2(u), Section 24, Section 25A and Section 301(1) CrPC — are to be read "as one singular scheme" (paras 21–26) that separates prosecutors for the High Court from those for district courts. It concluded that a Special Public Prosecutor appointed for a trial before a Special Court was not thereby eligible to argue the accused's appeals in the High Court, and that the appointment of a Public Prosecutor under Section 24(1) for the High Court "is different than" appointment for district courts (para 37(c), (d)). Although the appointment was held bad in law, the Court declined to order a fresh hearing of the appeal (para 37(e)). Section 20(5) and (6) BNSS keep the same High Court/district split, now adding Assistant Directors on the district side.

State of U.P. and Anr. v. Johri Mal, [2004] Supp. 1 S.C.R. 560 (2004 INSC 299) — 21 April 2004. V.N. Khare CJI, Brijesh Kumar and S.B. Sinha JJ. held that the holder of the office of Public Prosecutor "does not hold a civil post", that the appointment is a tenure appointment governed by the Code and executive instructions, and that Assistant Public Prosecutors, by contrast, are State employees holding civil posts (report pp. 584–585). The Court also found no rationale for Uttar Pradesh's deletion of the High Court consultation requirement in Section 24(1) and of sub-sections (4) to (6), observing that executive instructions cannot substitute for law (pp. 599–600). The appeals were allowed and the High Court's judgment set aside. Sections 18(1) and 18(4) to (6) BNSS repeat the consultation and panel machinery the Court discussed.

Mukul Dalal etc. v. Union of India & Ors. etc., [1988] 3 S.C.R. 868 — 4 May 1988. A Bench of R.S. Pathak CJ, Ranganath Misra and B.C. Ray JJ. (judgment by Misra J.) examined appointments of Special Public Prosecutors under Section 24(8) and Assistant Public Prosecutors under Section 25(1) CrPC at the instance of private complainants. The Court held that a request for a Special Public Prosecutor should be examined by the Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, and that such a prosecutor should ordinarily be paid from State funds, with fees in special cases deposited with a State agency rather than paid directly by the complainant (pp. 876–877). It held Rule 22 of the Maharashtra rules bad and allowed the appeals (pp. 877–878). Section 18(8) BNSS carries the Special Public Prosecutor power in the same words.

No Supreme Court judgment applying Sections 18 to 20 BNSS was traced in the material searched for this page as at 28 September 2026.

Which law applies to your case

Section 531(2)(a) BNSS provides that an appeal, application, trial, inquiry or investigation pending on 1 July 2024 is disposed of or continued under the CrPC "as if this Sanhita had not come into force". Section 531(2)(b) deems appointments made under the CrPC and in force before commencement — other than appointments as Special Magistrates — to have been made under the corresponding BNSS provisions. On a reading of these clauses, a prosecutor appointed under Section 24 CrPC continues under Section 18 BNSS. See Offence before 1 July 2024 — which law applies.

Frequently asked questions

Which BNSS sections replace Sections 24, 25 and 25A CrPC? Section 18 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 replaces Section 24 CrPC (Public Prosecutors), Section 19 replaces Section 25 (Assistant Public Prosecutors) and Section 20 replaces Section 25A (Directorate of Prosecution). They apply from 1 July 2024. Section 2(1)(v) BNSS now defines a Public Prosecutor as a person appointed under Section 18.

What experience does a person need to become a Public Prosecutor under the BNSS? Under Section 18(7) BNSS, a Public Prosecutor or Additional Public Prosecutor appointed for a High Court, by the Central Government or for a district must have been in practice as an advocate for not less than seven years. A Special Public Prosecutor under Section 18(8) needs not less than ten years. Both figures are unchanged from Section 24(7) and (8) CrPC.

Can a victim engage a private advocate in a BNSS prosecution? Yes, with the Court's permission. The proviso to Section 18(8) BNSS repeats the CrPC proviso: the Court may permit the victim to engage an advocate of his choice to assist the prosecution. Section 338(2) BNSS keeps that advocate under the directions of the Public Prosecutor. In Rekha Murarka v. State of West Bengal (2019 INSC 1269), the Supreme Court held that such counsel should ordinarily not make oral arguments or examine witnesses.

What is new about the Directorate of Prosecution under Section 20 BNSS? Section 20(1)(b) lets the State Government set up a District Directorate of Prosecution in every district, with Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors. Sub-sections (7) to (9) assign monitoring by punishment band: the Director for offences punishable with ten years or more, life or death; a Deputy Director for seven years or more but less than ten; an Assistant Director for less than seven years.

Is the Chief Justice still consulted before a Director of Prosecution is appointed? No. Section 25A(2) CrPC required appointment with the concurrence of the Chief Justice of the High Court and ten years' practice. Section 20(2)(a) BNSS requires not less than fifteen years' practice as an advocate, or that the person is or has been a Sessions Judge, and says nothing about the Chief Justice.

Can a police officer be appointed as an Assistant Public Prosecutor under the BNSS? Section 25(2) CrPC barred police officers generally, save as provided in Section 25(3). Section 19 BNSS has no such free-standing bar; the proviso to Section 19(3) makes a police officer ineligible if he took part in the investigation or is below the rank of Inspector. On a reading of the text, the general bar has gone; no Supreme Court ruling on the point was traced.

Do Public Prosecutors appointed under the CrPC continue after 1 July 2024? Section 531(2)(b) BNSS deems appointments made under the CrPC and in force immediately before the BNSS commenced, other than appointments as Special Magistrates, to have been made under the corresponding provisions of the BNSS. On a reading of that clause, a Public Prosecutor appointed under Section 24 CrPC is treated as appointed under Section 18 BNSS.

Related

• Section 2 CrPC vs Section 2 BNSS — Definitions
• Appeal against acquittal — CrPC 372-378 vs BNSS 413-419
• Victim rights and compensation under the new laws
• Section 200 CrPC — private complaint
• Offence before 1 July 2024 — which law applies
• CrPC to BNSS master table

Sources

• Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (Gazette text): Sections 2(1)(v), 18, 19, 20, 338 and 531.
• Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (India Code text, with amendment footnotes and State amendments as printed): Sections 2(u), 24, 25 and 25A.
• Judgments read in full text: Rekha Murarka v. State of West Bengal (2019_14_106_119_EN.md); K. Anbazhagan v. State of Karnataka (2015_7_469_511_EN.md); State of U.P. v. Johri Mal (S_2004_1_560_600_EN.md); Mukul Dalal v. Union of India (1988_3_868_878_EN.md).

This page explains the statutory text and the judgments cited as they stand. It is not legal advice; for a specific case, consult an advocate.