The Role of Public Prosecutor in the

Public Justice System

Introduction

A crime is defined as a wrong not only against the victims but also against the
society at large. The criminal justice administration system plays a significant role to
control crime rates and punish criminals. Generally, this system refers to the various
agencies of government charged with enforcing law, adjudicating crime, correcting
criminal conduct and isolating hard core criminals. India follows the adversarial
model of the Criminal Justice System. This system is essentially played role in crime
control in the society. Society considers some behaviours so dangerous and
destructive that it either strictly controls their occurrence or outlaws them absolute.
The criminal justice system largely involves four key components, namely, the
courts, police, public prosecutor, accused, victims and the defence lawyer. The
moment trail begins, the court, public prosecutor and the defence counsel involve
themselves rigorously in the process of determination of guilt. Under domestic law,
the state has the primary responsibility to protect its citizens. Thus, every crime
committed is considered a failure of the state (government) for not preventing its
commission.1 In order to comply with its role as protector of society, the state
considers any crime committed to be against itself, and not against the victim alone.
It professes to guarantee justice to the victim and society at large by punishing the
offender and prosecuting the case under its own name. By taking over the
responsibility of the prosecution, the government seeks to maintain public
confidence and faith in its criminal justice system. Public prosecutors represent the
state in criminal case. Their duty is to assist the fair trail process and to prevent the
abuse of court’s process by not letting the citizens directly handle criminal case via
private counsels for satisfaction of their personal vengeance.

Once the police completes it

1
DANIEL MOECKLI, Sangeeta Shah and Sandesh Sivakumaran, International Human Rights Law ch. 6 (2nd ed.
2014).