India’s prosecution service is entered through two separate doors, and only one of them is an examination. A state commission recruits assistant public prosecutors into a permanent cadre, while a Public Prosecutor is appointed by the government under Section 18 of the BNSS, 2023.
The examination is where the confusion starts, because each state commission sets its own entry bar for the same entry-level post. Uttar Pradesh’s notification for Assistant Prosecution Officer asks for a law degree and no practice at all. Madhya Pradesh and Odisha ask for two years at the Bar. The Delhi posts advertised through the Union Public Service Commission ask for three years, and Arunachal Pradesh asks for seven.
Getting that bar wrong costs a cycle rather than a form. Odisha’s current recruitment opened in late August 2026 and holds its preliminary examination on 1 November, so a candidate who applies without the two years the advertisement asks for spends four months preparing for a paper they cannot be appointed from.
Those bars differ because the Sanhita fixes only one of them. Section 19 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 obliges a State Government to appoint one or more assistant public prosecutors in every district, and it lays down no qualification for them. Section 18(7) permits a person to be appointed Public Prosecutor or Additional Public Prosecutor only after not less than seven years in practice as an advocate. Recruitment to the cadre is therefore left to state service rules, and the appointed posts carry a statutory floor.
The appointed posts are also where the law is moving. In 2026 the Supreme Court issued notice on a challenge to Kerala including the District Police Chief in the consultation that Section 18(4) gives to the Sessions Judge alone, the petitioner’s argument being that a prosecutor cannot be selected with the head of the investigating agency in the room. In a 2025 ruling the same court told state governments that additional public prosecutors and government pleaders are to be appointed on the merit of the person rather than on political considerations or nepotism.
Whether a candidate may apply at all turns on the date printed on their enrolment certificate rather than on anything in the Sanhita. A law graduate finished an LL.B. in 2024, enrolled with a State Bar Council in the same year, and has since been doing criminal work in a district court. Two recruitment windows are open in front of them at the same time.
Neither the Sanhita nor the Bar Council decides which of those windows this candidate may use. The advertisement decides it, and on roughly two years at the Bar the candidate clears Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, misses the Delhi posts by a year, and is out of Arunachal Pradesh for five more years.
Two entry points into India’s public prosecutor cadre
The entry point into India’s public prosecutor cadre is the post of Assistant Public Prosecutor, which a state public service commission recruits for by examination, and the post of Public Prosecutor is not recruited for at all. A government appoints to it, from a panel, on conditions the Sanhita lays down. Aspirants who search for a public prosecutor examination and find nothing are looking for a recruitment that does not exist.
The two offices stay separate throughout Chapter II of the Sanhita. Sections 18 and 19 create different offices, attach them to different courts, and give the appointment to different authorities. The offices also differ in permanence: an assistant public prosecutor holds a civil post in a state cadre, while a Public Prosecutor for a district or a High Court is appointed for a term. What each office actually does in a criminal case is set out in the roles and functions of a public prosecutor.
Assistant public prosecutor posts created by Section 19
Section 19 creates the post that an aspirant actually applies for. Under Section 19(1) the State Government shall appoint in every district one or more Assistant Public Prosecutors for conducting prosecutions in the Courts of Magistrates. Section 19(2) gives the Central Government a parallel power to appoint assistant public prosecutors for any case or class of cases in those courts.
Magistrates try every offence that is not exclusively triable by a Court of Session, which is why this is the post that exists in numbers. An assistant public prosecutor conducts the prosecution in summons cases, warrant cases and summary trials, opposes bail, and carries the state’s position through the trial. Odisha advertised 172 of these posts in its 2026 cycle, and the Delhi posts went out through the Union Public Service Commission in the same year.
Section 19(3) covers the gap when no assistant public prosecutor is available for a particular case. The District Magistrate may then appoint some other person to be the Assistant Public Prosecutor in charge of that case, after giving fourteen days’ notice to the State Government. The proviso bars a police officer who has taken any part in the investigation of the offence, and bars any police officer below the rank of Inspector.
That proviso states the principle the rest of the chapter is built on. A person who investigated the case may not prosecute it. The prosecutor is not the last stage of the investigation, and the separation is written into the appointment power rather than left to convention.
Appointment to Public Prosecutor under Section 18
Appointment to the post of Public Prosecutor runs through a panel and a consultation, not through a commission. For every High Court, Section 18(1) requires the Central Government or the State Government to appoint a Public Prosecutor, and permits one or more Additional Public Prosecutors, after consultation with the High Court. For the National Capital Territory of Delhi the Central Government makes that appointment, in consultation with the High Court of Delhi.
For a district the route is different again. Under Section 18(4) the District Magistrate, in consultation with the Sessions Judge, prepares a panel of names of persons who in his opinion are fit to be appointed Public Prosecutor or Additional Public Prosecutor for the district. Section 18(5) then bars the State Government from appointing anyone whose name does not appear on that panel. The Kerala challenge now before the Supreme Court is about who else a state may add to that consultation.
Section 18(8) sits above both of those routes. It allows the Central Government or the State Government to appoint a person who has been in practice as an advocate for not less than ten years as a Special Public Prosecutor for any case or class of cases, and its proviso permits the court to allow the victim to engage an advocate of choice to assist the prosecution.
For the candidate in the running file, only one of these doors is open. Two years at the Bar is five years short of the Section 18(7) floor and eight short of Section 18(8), and no panel prepared under Section 18(4) will carry the name of a lawyer in their second year of practice. The determination at this stage is to apply to the commission, not to the District Magistrate, and to treat the Section 18 route as a destination rather than an entry.
Eligibility to check before a public prosecutor notification opens
Eligibility for an assistant public prosecutor post rests on a law degree from a recognised university, and everything after that changes with the notification. Four separate things move from state to state: the years demanded at the Bar, the age band, the domicile and reservation position, and whether enrolment as an advocate is needed at all. A candidate who satisfies all four on the cut-off date in one advertisement may fail on two of them in the next state’s.
That variation is structural in origin rather than administrative. Section 18(7) binds the posts a government appoints to, and Section 19 leaves the cadre posts to state service rules, so each state writes its own recruitment rules for the same office.
Years at the Bar that a public prosecutor recruitment asks for
Years at the Bar are the condition that varies most, and in 2026 the spread ran from none to seven. The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission’s Assistant Prosecution Officer notification states no requirement of prior practice, so a fresh law graduate may sit it. The Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission asks for two years of practice at the Bar for the Assistant District Prosecution Officer post, and the Odisha Public Service Commission asks for two years as a practising advocate for its Assistant Public Prosecutor posts.
Two commissions set the bar higher than those two years. The Union Public Service Commission, advertising Assistant Public Prosecutor posts in the Directorate of Prosecution of the Government of NCT of Delhi under Advertisement No. 11 of 2026, asks for a law degree and three years’ experience at the Bar, with experience as a Government Advocate stated as desirable. The Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission asks for a Bachelor of Law with seven years of experience in criminal law practice, for the 18 Assistant Public Prosecutor posts in its 2026 cycle.
A candidate planning more than one attempt should read that spread as a calendar rather than as a ranking. Every year at the Bar opens another set of states without closing any, because none of these recruitments carries an upper limit on practice. The strategy that follows is to sit the states that are open now and to add the rest as the years accrue.
| Commission and post | Practice at the Bar | Age band |
|---|---|---|
| UPPSC, Assistant Prosecution Officer | None | 21 to 40 |
| MPPSC, Assistant District Prosecution Officer | 2 years | 21 to 40, as on 1 January 2027 |
| OPSC, Assistant Public Prosecutor, Advt. No. 09 of 2026-27 | 2 years as a practising advocate | 21 to 42, as on 1 January 2026 |
| UPSC, Assistant Public Prosecutor, Delhi, Advt. No. 11 of 2026 | 3 years | 35 for UR and EWS, 38 for OBC, 40 for SC and ST |
| APPSC, Assistant Public Prosecutor | 7 years in criminal law practice | 21 to 35, as on 12 October 2026 |
Age, domicile and enrolment for a public prosecutor applicant
Age bands are enforced on a stated cut-off date, and that date moves with the recruitment cycle rather than with the calendar year. Madhya Pradesh reckons age as on 1 January 2027 for its 2026 recruitment, Odisha as on 1 January 2026, and Arunachal Pradesh as on 12 October 2026. The Delhi advertisement sets the ceiling by category instead of giving one band, at 35 years for unreserved and EWS candidates, 38 for OBC and 40 for SC and ST. Relaxations for ex-servicemen and for candidates with benchmark disabilities sit on top of those figures and are not uniform across states.
Domicile matters for the reserved seats rather than for eligibility as such. A state cadre recruitment is usually open to citizens of India generally, while the reservation benefits attached to it are confined to categories notified by that state, so an outside candidate competes in the unreserved pool.
Language is the condition that more often shuts that outside candidate out. The Uttar Pradesh recruitment requires the ability to read and write Hindi in the Devanagari script, and the main examination there carries Hindi and English papers of its own. Odisha requires a candidate to speak, read and write Odia.
Whether enrolment is needed at all follows from the practice requirement. A notification that asks for years at the Bar is asking for enrolment under the Advocates Act, 1961, which in turn means clearing the All India Bar Examination and holding a certificate of practice. A notification that asks for none, as Uttar Pradesh’s does, is open to a law graduate who has never enrolled. Odisha puts the point beyond argument by asking separately for enrolment with the Bar Council of India or a State Bar Council.
For the candidate in the running file, the arithmetic is settled by the two open windows rather than by preference. The determination is to file in Odisha and Madhya Pradesh in this cycle, to diarise the Delhi advertisement for the year in which the third year at the Bar completes, and to keep the enrolment certificate rather than any coaching record as the document that proves eligibility.
Clearing the assistant public prosecutor examination
Clearing an assistant public prosecutor examination means clearing three stages, and the law papers carry almost all of the weight. A commission runs a preliminary objective paper as a screen, a descriptive main examination that decides the merit list, and an interview worth a small fraction of the total. Odisha aggregates its main examination and interview at 650 marks, and Uttar Pradesh aggregates its three stages at 700.
What the papers test is the working content of a magistrate’s court day. Substantive criminal law, the procedural code, evidence and the local Acts a prosecutor handles in volume all appear, which means the syllabus overlaps heavily with the stages of a criminal trial under the BNSS. Candidates weighing this against the bench should also look at the upcoming judicial services exams, where much of the same preparation carries across.
Preliminary paper in a public prosecutor recruitment
Preliminary papers are objective, timed at two hours, and designed to cut the field rather than to rank it. The Odisha Public Service Commission sets 100 objective questions carrying 100 marks over two hours for its Assistant Public Prosecutor recruitment, with the preliminary examination scheduled for 1 November 2026. The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission sets 150 marks across 50 General Knowledge questions and 100 Law questions, also over two hours, in offline OMR mode.
Negative marking changes how that paper should be attempted. Uttar Pradesh deducts one third of a mark for every wrong answer, so a candidate who guesses across 30 uncertain questions and gets 12 right nets 6 marks rather than 12. Where a paper carries that deduction, the attempt strategy is to answer what can be narrowed to two options and to leave the rest.
The other feature of a preliminary paper is that its marks do not carry forward. It qualifies a candidate for the main examination and then drops out of the reckoning entirely, which is why time spent chasing the last few objective marks is usually better spent on the descriptive papers.
Main written papers and the public prosecutor interview
Main written papers are descriptive, and they are where the seat is actually won. Odisha sets four papers of 150 marks each, subjective and descriptive in form. Uttar Pradesh sets six papers totalling 500 marks, each of three hours, covering General Knowledge, law, and language papers in Hindi and English, with the personality test carrying 50 marks against that 500.
The syllabus in both states now runs the old and the new codes together. Odisha’s advertised syllabus covers the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 alongside the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the Indian Penal Code, 1860 alongside the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. That pairing is not an editorial choice by the commission. Offences committed before 1 July 2024 are still tried under the old codes, so a prosecutor joining in 2027 will carry both sets of provisions for years.
Interview marks are set against the written papers at a ratio that decides close cases rather than reorders the list, 50 against 500 in Uttar Pradesh. A panel asks about the candidate’s own court experience, the offences they have appeared in, and the procedural position on facts put to them. A candidate with two years in a district court has an answer to those questions that a fresh graduate does not.
For the candidate in the running file, the two open windows put their preliminary papers about five weeks apart. The determination is to sit both rather than choose, because the descriptive syllabus is substantially common and a second attempt in the same cycle costs only the travel.
Joining the public prosecutor cadre and its effect on your sanad
Joining the public prosecutor cadre places the appointee in a state prosecution service under the administrative control of the Home Department, and it ends their private practice. Section 20 of the Sanhita permits a State Government to establish a Directorate of Prosecution headed by a Director of Prosecution, with Deputy Directors, and a District Directorate of Prosecution in every district staffed by Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors. The Delhi posts advertised in 2026 are permanent posts in General Central Service Group A, gazetted and non-ministerial, carrying two years of probation and a mandatory induction training of at least two weeks.
A new assistant public prosecutor is posted to the courts of magistrates in a district, and under Section 20 every assistant public prosecutor appointed under Section 19(1) is subordinate to the Deputy Director or the Assistant Director of Prosecution. The day consists of scrutinising case diaries and charge sheets, appearing in whatever is listed, opposing or conceding bail, examining witnesses, and advising the police on the sufficiency of evidence before a charge sheet goes in. Statutory functions attach to the office directly, including the prosecutor’s role in plea bargaining under the BNSS.
Placing that reporting line in the Home Department rather than in the police hierarchy is the whole point of a separate Directorate. An assistant public prosecutor advises the investigating officer and declines to support a charge the evidence does not carry, and neither function survives if the same officer writes the prosecutor’s confidential report. The Kerala matter now before the Supreme Court is the same separation argued one stage earlier, at the point of appointment rather than at the point of supervision.
Rule 49 and a public prosecutor’s Bar Council enrolment
Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Rules stops an advocate from being a full-time salaried employee while continuing to practise. An advocate who takes up such employment must intimate the Bar Council on whose roll the name appears, and ceases to practise as an advocate for as long as the employment continues. Joining a prosecution cadre is that kind of employment, so the right to appear for private clients goes on the date of joining.
What Rule 49 does not authorise is the removal of the name from the roll. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh read the rule narrowly in John Mohammad Wani v. Bar Council of Jammu and Kashmir, decided on 5 September 2025. The Court held that the rule requires only that a salaried person should not practise as a full-time advocate, and the consequence that follows is suspension of the right to practise from the date of appointment. The Bar Council had cancelled the enrolment of a prosecuting officer in August 2024, and the Court quashed that cancellation as disproportionate and restored the enrolment.
Suspension has immediate consequences that a joining officer should plan for. No vakalatnama may be filed and no private brief accepted from the date of appointment, and a matter already part-heard has to be returned to the client with enough notice for fresh counsel to come on record. A candidate whose district practice has running matters should begin that handover before the joining date rather than after it.
The practical determination for anyone joining is therefore a two-line letter rather than a surrender. Intimate the State Bar Council of the appointment and its date, ask for the practice to be recorded as suspended, and keep the enrolment alive, because Section 18(9) later counts the service itself as practice at the Bar.
Pay and allowances in the public prosecutor cadre
Pay in the prosecution cadre replaces that private income on a scale fixed by the pay matrix of the government that recruits, and the entry-level post sits at Level 10 in both of the 2026 advertisements that state a figure. What a level means in rupees is set by the matrix it belongs to, so the same level number is not the same salary in two different governments.
The Delhi advertisement is the more generous of the two. UPSC Advertisement No. 11 of 2026 puts the 140 Assistant Public Prosecutor posts at Level 10 in the Pay Matrix as per the 7th Central Pay Commission. The first cell of Level 10 in the Central matrix is a basic pay of Rs. 56,100 a month, and dearness allowance, house rent allowance and the other central allowances are calculated on top of that basic figure rather than included in it.
Odisha advertises the same level for a smaller number. The Odisha Public Service Commission fixes the Assistant Public Prosecutor posts under Advertisement No. 09 of 2026-27 at Rs. 44,900 in Level 10 of the pay matrix under the Odisha Revised Scales of Pay Rules, 2017, with dearness allowance and the other allowances sanctioned by the State Government on top.
Those two figures are eleven thousand rupees apart at the same stated level, because the Central pay matrix and the Odisha matrix are different tables that happen to number their rows the same way. A candidate comparing two advertisements should therefore read each level against the rules that advertisement names, and should treat every figure quoted as basic pay before allowances. For the candidate in the running file, the determination is to compare the Odisha offer against the Odisha matrix and the Delhi offer against the Central one, and to ignore any single rupee figure quoted without the rules it comes from.
Rising from assistant public prosecutor to public prosecutor
Rising from assistant public prosecutor to Public Prosecutor happens by promotion within the cadre in states that have one, because Section 18(6) requires the appointment to be made from the regular Cadre of Prosecuting Officers where such a cadre exists. The Explanation to that sub-section defines such a cadre as one that includes the post of Public Prosecutor and that provides for the promotion of assistant public prosecutors to it, so the promotion is part of the statutory definition rather than a matter left to a state’s service rules. The State Government may go outside that cadre only where in its opinion no suitable person is available within it, and even then it appoints from the panel the District Magistrate prepares under Section 18(4). The examination sat on entry is therefore the route to the appointment sought later.
Section 18(9) is what makes that promotion arithmetic work. It provides that the period during which a person has been in practice as an advocate, or has rendered service as a Public Prosecutor, Additional Public Prosecutor, Assistant Public Prosecutor or other Prosecuting Officer, is deemed to be the period in practice as an advocate. Years served in the cadre therefore count towards the seven years Section 18(7) demands, and a cadre officer crosses that threshold without ever returning to private practice.
Advocates outside any cadre reach the same post through Sections 18(4) and 18(5), which is the panel route. Seven years of practice makes a lawyer eligible, the District Magistrate and the Sessions Judge decide whose name goes on the panel, and the State Government appoints from it. The 2025 direction of the Supreme Court that these appointments turn on proficiency in law, background and integrity rather than on political considerations applies to that route. A panel route is a nomination rather than a competition, which it has in common with other legal offices filled on eligibility and nomination, including appointment as an arbitrator in India.
Special public prosecutor and the Directorate of Prosecution ceiling
Special Public Prosecutor is the first rung above the district posts, and Section 18(8) sets it at ten years in practice as an advocate. The appointment is made for a particular case or class of cases rather than for a term, which is how governments staff communal-violence trials, economic-offence prosecutions and cases under special Acts.
Section 20 carries the ceiling above those case-specific appointments. A Director of Prosecution or a Deputy Director of Prosecution qualifies on not less than fifteen years of practice as an advocate, or on service as a Sessions Judge. An Assistant Director of Prosecution qualifies on not less than seven years of practice, or on service as a Magistrate of the first class.
What each rank monitors is graded by sentence rather than by district. A Director of Prosecution monitors cases carrying ten years or more, life imprisonment or death, a Deputy Director monitors those carrying seven to ten years, and an Assistant Director takes offences punishable with less than seven years. The Advocate General is outside the section altogether.
Because Section 18(9) counts cadre service as practice, those thresholds are reachable without ever returning to the Bar. Five more years of service takes the candidate in the running file past the seven years that a Public Prosecutor and an Assistant Director of Prosecution both need, and thirteen more takes them to the fifteen that a Deputy Director needs.
Frequently asked questions
Can you become a public prosecutor in India straight after an LL.B.?
You cannot be appointed Public Prosecutor straight after an LL.B., because Section 18(7) of the BNSS requires not less than seven years in practice as an advocate. You can enter the prosecution cadre as an assistant public prosecutor in a state whose notification asks for no prior practice, and the Uttar Pradesh Assistant Prosecution Officer recruitment is the largest of those. Most other states ask for two to seven years at the Bar.
Is there a single national examination for public prosecutors?
There is no single national examination, and prosecution recruitment is run state by state. Each state public service commission notifies its own Assistant Public Prosecutor or Assistant Prosecution Officer vacancies, sets its own eligibility and runs its own papers. The Union Public Service Commission conducts the recruitment for the Delhi posts, because the Directorate of Prosecution there sits under the Government of NCT of Delhi.
How many years of practice does Section 18 BNSS require?
Section 18(7) sets seven years in practice as an advocate for a Public Prosecutor or an Additional Public Prosecutor, and Section 18(8) sets ten years for a Special Public Prosecutor. Section 18(9) provides that service as a Public Prosecutor, Additional Public Prosecutor, Assistant Public Prosecutor or other Prosecuting Officer counts as practice for both thresholds. Section 20 sets fifteen years for a Director or Deputy Director of Prosecution.
Do you lose your Bar Council enrolment when you join as an assistant public prosecutor?
You do not lose the enrolment, and you do lose the right to practise privately while the appointment lasts. Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Rules requires an advocate taking full-time salaried employment to intimate the State Bar Council and to cease practising for the duration. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh held in John Mohammad Wani v. Bar Council of Jammu and Kashmir, decided on 5 September 2025, that the remedy is suspension of the right to practise rather than cancellation of the enrolment.
What is the difference between an assistant public prosecutor and a public prosecutor?
An assistant public prosecutor is appointed under Section 19 to conduct prosecutions in the courts of magistrates, and a Public Prosecutor is appointed under Section 18 for a district or a High Court. The first is a recruited cadre post with no statutory qualification, and the second is a government appointment carrying a seven-year practice requirement and, for a district, a panel prepared by the District Magistrate in consultation with the Sessions Judge. In a state with a regular cadre of prosecuting officers, Section 18(6) requires the district appointment to be made from that cadre.
References
Statutes and rules
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Section 18 (Public Prosecutors)
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Section 19 (Assistant Public Prosecutors)
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Section 20 (Directorate of Prosecution)
- Advocates Act, 1961, and Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Rules, Chapter II, Part VI
Case law
- John Mohammad Wani v. Bar Council of Jammu and Kashmir and others (High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, 5 September 2025)
- Mahabir and others v. State of Haryana, 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 121 (Supreme Court, 29 January 2025)
- Vishnuprasad Nair v. State of Kerala and others, SLP(C) No. 28482 of 2026 (Supreme Court, notice issued 19 August 2026)
Recruitment notifications
- Union Public Service Commission, Advertisement No. 11 of 2026, Assistant Public Prosecutor, Directorate of Prosecution, Government of NCT of Delhi
- Odisha Public Service Commission, Advertisement No. 09 of 2026-27, Assistant Public Prosecutor, Odisha State Prosecution Service
- Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, Assistant Prosecution Officer recruitment, 2026 cycle
- Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission, Assistant District Prosecution Officer recruitment, 2026 cycle
- Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission, Assistant Public Prosecutor recruitment, 2026 cycle
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Eligibility conditions, vacancies and examination dates are set by each recruiting commission and change with every cycle, so the advertisement in force on the date of application governs. Candidates should read the current notification before applying.