Editor,

The Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC), vide its Advertisement No 06/2026, dated Itanagar, 9 September, 2026, invited applications for four posts. One of those posts is that of assistant public prosecutor, which is a Grade B post within the Home Department.

The examination for this post, or for any prosecution officers, is being held for the first time in Arunachal Pradesh. Public prosecutors carry out an important function of prosecuting accused criminals before the magistrates' courts and sessions courts within a state.

The Home Department, which set the rules for eligibility to appear for the examination of this entry-level post, has set such a high standard that it has never been observed before. It is also to be noted that assistant public prosecutors are the lowest grade among the cadre of prosecution officers. The eligibility criteria for this entry-level post have been declared in the advertisement as someone holding a Bachelor of Law degree and having a minimum of seven years of experience in criminal law practice.

Such a high standard of eligibility has never been observed from any other state conducting the same examination or even from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which conducts examinations for posts of assistant public prosecutor for central bodies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), the primary legislation which deals with procedure in criminal cases, requires the eligibility of a public prosecutor as someone having seven years of experience in criminal law, but, as it stands, that is a post which is two grades above that of an assistant public prosecutor.

The BNSS does not provide for any eligibility criteria for assistant public prosecutor and, therefore, it should not be treated as an opportunity to set a criterion too high.

Concurrent to the aforementioned advertisement by the APPSC, the UPSC has also advertised posts for assistant public prosecutors for the Directorate of Prosecution, Department of Home, NCT of Delhi, through Advertisement No 11/2026. In the advertisement, the post has been declared as Level-10 CPC, which is a Grade A post, and the eligibility criteria mandates that an advocate should have three years of experience in criminal law. Last year too, the UPSC had advertised posts for assistant public prosecutors for the CBI through Advertisement No 12/2025. Albeit it was a Grade B post, the only eligibility was the requirement of a degree in law from a recognised university.

The same can be witnessed from multiple advertisements of various states conducting examinations for the same post. I shall not name each and every state or advertisement, but most of the states do not require any experience from the applicant, while others require a few years of experience, although none of them exceeding three years.

Another issue which has crept up from the advertisement is that the syllabus as well as the eligibility criteria for assistant director of prosecution (Grade A) and assistant public prosecutor (Grade B) is the same. The recruitment rules for the assistant director of prosecution state that 50% of the recruitment shall be done through direct entry and the remaining 50% through promotion from public prosecutors.

It is to be noted that public prosecutors and assistant directors of prosecution belong to the same level, ie, Pay Level 10, and both require seven years of experience in criminal law. Therefore, a person entering the cadre through the promotional route from the post of public prosecutor would necessarily have to spend several years acquiring the requisite experience before becoming eligible for the post of assistant director of prosecution.

On the other hand, a person can directly enter the post of assistant director of prosecution, subject to fulfilling the same seven-year experience requirement.

Against this backdrop, prescribing the same seven-year experience requirement for the post of assistant public prosecutor, which is the entry-level post in the cadre, creates a further anomaly. An advocate seeking to enter the cadre as an assistant public prosecutor is required to possess the same level of experience as an advocate seeking to enter the higher post of assistant director of prosecution.

Consequently, an advocate who enters through the post of assistant public prosecutor would have already spent seven years in practice before entering the lowest grade of the cadre, while those entering through the promotional route would similarly have to acquire substantial experience before reaching the higher post of assistant director of prosecution.

Ultimately, both the public prosecutor and assistant director of prosecution are positions occupied by advocates with the same level of experience, making it difficult to understand why the same seven-year experience requirement has been imposed on the entry-level post of assistant public prosecutor.

The only conclusion one can reasonably draw from this advertisement is that the requirement of seven years of experience, imposed by the Home Department and the APPSC, is completely unnecessary and unwarranted. It is difficult to understand why such a stringent eligibility criterion has been introduced, particularly when it effectively excludes a large number of young and aspiring advocates from even appearing for the examination. Many young advocates had been eagerly waiting for this recruitment advertisement for months and had been preparing themselves with the expectation of getting an opportunity to compete. Instead, the unreasonable seven-year experience requirement has come as a major disappointment to them.

Such a criterion not only denies young advocates a fair opportunity to compete but also causes serious prejudice to those who have already invested considerable time and effort in preparing for the examination.

A concerned candidate