This matter arises from a petition under section 561-A, Criminal Procedure Code, filed by one A.K. Gopalan, convicted in S.C. No. 23 of 1948, on the file of the Sessions Judge, North Malabar, and sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment. He has filed Criminal Appeal No. 243 of 1948 against that conviction and sentence, and that appeal is pending in this Court. His complaint is that when his advocate went on 25th August, 1949, to interview him in Cuddalore Central Jail, to take instructions from him regarding this appeal, a police officer of the C.I.D. insisted on being present at the interview and taking verbatim shorthand notes of what he was telling the vakil, and that all this is illegal and that if the C.I.D. officer takes such notes he would communicate them to his superior officers and to the counsel on the opposite side, thus breaking the rules regarding the confidential nature of such communications. He prays, therefore, that either this Court should order, under section 561-A, Criminal Procedure Code that no police officer should be present at the interview between him and his counsel, when he instructs his counsel regarding Criminal Appeal No. 243 of 1948, or the other two appeals of his in the Sessions Court, Coimbatore, and take notes of his instructions to his vakil, or, in the alternative, that he be directed to be produced before this Court to argue Criminal Appeal No. 243 of 1948, in person. The learned Public Prosecutor objected that this Court has no powers under section 561-A, Criminal Procedure Code, to grant either request as the Government had directed the C.I.D. officer to be present at such interviews. He relied on a decision of Govinda Menon and Rajagopalan, JJ., in Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No. 1490 of 1949. I have looked into that ruling. It has no bearing on the requests in this petition regarding the interviews concerning the three Criminal Appeals. There, one Anandan Nambiar, a member of the Madras Legislative Assembly and a detenu under the Madras Maintenance of Public Safety Order, Act 1 of 1947, having no case or appeal in this Court, prayed that the Superintendent of the Jail, where he was detained should be ordered to produce him before the Speaker of the Madras Legislative Assembly during the Assembly Session to take part in the Assembly proceedings, even though he had no notice to attend such proceedings, and to direct the Speaker of the Assembly to give him notice of the Assembly proceedings. Their Lordships held, and, if I may say so with respect, correctly, that section 561-A, Criminal Procedure Code, had not given increased powers to a Court which the Court did not possess before that section was enacted, much less new powers, and that it only safeguarded and guaranteed the existence of those powers which the Court already possessed. Their ruling followed the ruling in King-Emperor v. Khwaja Nazir Ahmad.1It is obvious that the requests made by Mr. Anandan Nambiar in the matter before their Lordships were quite outside the scope of this Court, having nothing to do with any matter or proceeding pending before it, and that no notice also had been given to him by the speaker of the Assembly to attend the Session, and it was not alleged that he was being wrongfully kept in ignorance of such notice, or that a notice actually issued by the speaker was being wrongfully withheld from him and that he was being wrongfully prevented from attending the Assembly in obedience to such notice. But, in this case, the petitioner has filed an appeal in this Court, which is pending, and has also two appeals in the Sessions Court, Coimbatore, and he has to be given by this Court all necessary facilities to instruct his counsel in those criminal appeals, like any other appellant. So, the petitioner is asking this Court only to exercise the powers of this Court regarding appellants in cases before it, and concerning their right to instruct vakils without a police officer being present and taki