IMPORTANT POINT
No mandamus could be issued for appointment/renewal of District Government Counsel.

JUDGMENT

G.S. SINGHVI, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Legal Remembrancer’s Manual (for short, ‘LR Manual’) framed by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and Section 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.) contain a comprehensive mechanism for appointment of District Government Counsel for Civil, Criminal and Revenue Courts in the State and renewal of their term. However, from 1990 onwards these provisions have become victim of the spoil system and have been misused by the party in power for conferring favours upon chosen advocates. In last 21/2 decades the appointments and renewal or non-renewal of the term of District Government Counsel and termination of their services generated huge litigation, the disposal of which has consumed substantial time of the Allahabad High Court and this Court.

3. In Kumari Shrilekha Vidyarthi v. State of U.P. (1991) 1 SCC 212, this Court declared as arbitrary and unconstitutional the State Government’s decision to en masse terminate the appointment of District Government Counsel in all the districts as a prelude to fresh appointments.

4. In State of U.P. v. Ramesh Chandra Sharma (1995) 6 SCC 527, this Court interpreted paragraph 7.06(3) of the LR Manual and observed:

“In view of the clear provision in clause (3) of para 7.06 that the ‘appointment of any legal practitioner as a District Government Counsel is only professional engagement’, it is difficult to appreciate the submission for which sustenance is sought from the provisions contained in the same Manual. The appointment being for a fixed term and requiring express renewal in the manner provided in the Manual, there is no basis to contend that it is not a professional engagement of a legal practitioner but appointment to a post in government service which continues till attaining the age of superannuation. In the earlier decisions of this Court including Shrilekha Vidyarthi, the appointment of District Government Counsel under the Manual has been understood only as a professional engagement of a legal practitioner. This contention is, therefore, rejected.”

5. In Harpal Singh Chauhan v. State of U.P. (1993) 3 SCC 552, this Court analysed the provisions of LR Manual and observed:

“As already mentioned above, Section 24 of the Code does not speak about the extension or renewal of the term of the Public Prosecutor or Additional Public Prosecutor. But after the expiry of the term of the appointment of persons concerned, it requires the same statutory exercise, in which either new persons are appointed or those who have been working as Public Prosecutor or Additional Public Prosecutor, are again appointed by the State Government, for a fresh term. The procedure prescribed in the Manual — to the extent it is not in conflict with the provisions of Section 24 — shall be deemed to be supplementing the statutory provisions. But merely because there is a provision for extension or renewal of the term, the same cannot be claimed as a matter of right.

It is true that none of the appellants can claim, as a matter of right, that their terms should have been extended or that they should be appointed against the existing vacancies, but, certainly, they can make a grievance that either they have not received a fair treatment by the appointing authority or that the procedure prescribed in the Code and in the Manual aforesaid, has not been followed. While exercising the power of judicial review even in respect of appointment of members of the legal profession as District Government Counsel, the Court can examine whether there was any infirmity in the ‘decision- making process’. Of course, while doing so, the Court cannot substitute its own judgment over the final decision taken in respect of selection of persons for those posts.”

6. In State of U.P. v. Johri Mal (2004) 4 SCC 714, this Court (three Judge Bench) considered the question whether the respondent who had been appointed as District Government Counsel (Criminal) at Meerut in January, 1993 was entitled to have th