The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the Delhi government’s order requiring public prosecutors in trial courts to record daily attendance through the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS), putting a digital monitoring mandate for the prosecution service on hold until the next hearing in December.
Justice Amit Mahajan issued notice on a petition filed by the Delhi Prosecutors’ Welfare Association against an October 5 order of the Directorate of Prosecution. The directive required all prosecuting officers to mark their attendance either on biometric machines or through a mobile attendance application at their respective district court complexes or district offices.
The petitioners argued that public prosecutors and additional public prosecutors are officers of the court appointed under Sections 18 and 19 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. Their presence, they submitted, is already recorded in judicial order sheets, making a separate compulsory biometric attendance system unnecessary and legally questionable.
The association also challenged the order on grounds that it was unreasoned, arbitrary and contrary to the law on Aadhaar and the right to privacy. The case places a routine administrative measure within a wider question facing public institutions: how far digital attendance systems can be applied to professionals whose work takes place across courtrooms, offices, police interactions and case-related proceedings rather than at a single fixed workstation.
According to the petition, prosecutors begin work before courts commence at 10 a.m. by conferring with investigating officers, scrutinising police files, verifying the presence of witnesses and preparing matters related to remand and bail. They then remain in court until proceedings conclude. The petition said a rigid attendance requirement could impose an additional administrative burden on chief public prosecutors who would have to account for routine court-related movements.
The association further contended that the mandate could divert prosecutors from their primary judicial functions and cause avoidable delays in remand, bail and trial proceedings. It linked the issue to the constitutional guarantee of speedy trial under Article 21, arguing that an attendance regime designed to improve administrative oversight could affect the functioning of criminal courts if it does not reflect the mobile and court-centred nature of prosecutorial work.
The authorities had earlier rejected the association’s representation against the AEBAS requirement, stating that the objection lacked merit and that attendance marking was necessary. The government’s position, as recorded in the report, makes the dispute a contest between administrative accountability and the operational requirements of court-based public services.
Senior advocates N. Hariharan, Ashish Mohan and Sacchin Puri appeared for the petitioners, assisted by lawyers Kushal Kumar, Aditya Kapoor, Rishabh Saxena and Harsh Ahuja. The High Court is scheduled to hear the matter next in December, when the legality and implementation of the attendance order will be considered further.
