India
Prosecution in India
Prosecution is run by the States — each maintains a Directorate of Prosecution under its Home Department — while the Union prosecutes for its own agencies.
Facts on this page were checked against their sources on .
Prosecution follows the State structure. Each State government establishes a Directorate of Prosecution, headed by a Director of Prosecution and functioning under the administrative control of the State's Home Department (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, section 20); the Union runs prosecution only for its own central agencies. The prosecution is an executive body, not part of the judiciary and not constitutionally independent.
The same idea, explained generally
- What does a prosecutor do?
A prosecutor decides whether a criminal case should be brought, on what charges, and presents it in court. This guide explains the tests applied, the duties owed, and how the role differs between systems.
- Why do justice systems need oversight?
Justice institutions hold coercive powers, often operate out of public view, and make decisions that are hard to reverse. This guide explains the oversight mechanisms built to detect and correct errors, and their limits.
Sources
Sources
The Constitution of India (as on 1 May 2024)
Government of India, Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department) · Legislation · 1950-01-26 · link verified 2026-07-27
The official Constitution of India PDF (Ministry of Law and Justice, "As on 1st May, 2024"), fetched and text-extracted; the Seventh Schedule entries and the cited articles were re-confirmed verbatim in two independent passes. Supports the federal division of legislative power under the Seventh Schedule (Article 246): List II (State List) Entry 1 "Public order", Entry 2 "Police (including railway and village police)", Entry 4 "Prisons, reformatories, Borstal institutions… and persons detained therein" — so police, public order and prisons are exclusive STATE subjects; List III (Concurrent List) Entry 1 "Criminal law…", Entry 2 "Criminal procedure…", Entry 11A "Administration of Justice; constitution and organisation of all courts, except the Supreme Court and the High Courts" — so the criminal codes and subordinate-court organisation are concurrent (national); and List I (Union List) Entry 8 "Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation". Also supports Article 50 (separation of the judiciary from the executive), Article 124 (the Supreme Court of India), Article 141 (Supreme Court law binding on all courts), Article 214 ("There shall be a High Court for each State"), and Article 235 (High Court control over district and subordinate courts).