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The Supreme Court today issued notice on a plea by a Tamil Nadu Law Officer seeking expunction of adverse remarks made against him by the Madras High Court in an order concerning the conduct of a criminal trial.

A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta clarified that the notice would be limited to the observations made by the High Court against the petitioner.

The counsel appearing for the Law Officer submitted that no notice had been given to the petitioner before the High Court made the adverse observations.

Justice Mehta, however, questioned the submission, pointing out that the Law Officer had withheld a vital document from the trial court while prosecuting a criminal case.

“You exhibited the highest level of incompetence. You don't deserve to be a public prosecutor. Such a vital document you withheld. Technically you may be right that no notice was given but you don't deserve any notice. As a matter of fact, you don't deserve to be a public prosecutor,” Justice Mehta said.

The remarks challenged before the Supreme Court were made by Justice B. Pugalendhi of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on April 1, 2026.

The High Court was dealing with an application seeking suspension of the sentence of a person convicted in a case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. During the hearing, the High Court found that the prosecution had failed to properly place before the trial court an Accident Register relating to the victim.

The Accident Register recorded four injuries suffered by the victim. The High Court noted that the document had not been marked before the trial court and that no questions had been put to the witness doctor regarding the document during her examination.

The High Court noted that a copy of the wound certificate was available in the CD file and had also been placed before the High Court during an earlier application. Despite this, the prosecutor had not taken steps to have the Accident Register marked as an additional document by filing an application under Section 311 CrPC.

The High Court observed that the Law Officer had either deliberately evaded marking the document or was not equipped with the basic knowledge required to conduct a criminal trial before a Sessions Court.

The High Court had earlier directed the Director of Prosecution to take appropriate action against the Special Public Prosecutor who had conducted the trial. The Director of Prosecution subsequently filed a report acknowledging the manner in which the prosecution had been conducted and stating that the prosecutor had not even raised questions based on the Accident Register.

The Director of Prosecution recommended removal of the Law Officer from service on July 7, 2025. The High Court noted that the Government had not taken a decision on the recommendation.

The High Court subsequently suo motu impleaded the District Collector, Theni, and the Secretary to the Government, Home Department, Chennai, and directed them to take a decision on the recommendation within four weeks.

The Law Officer challenged that High Court order before the Supreme Court, which has now issued notice expressly confined to those observations.

Case no. – Diary No. 30138 / 2026

 

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