Legal provisions regarding the Defence Counsel under section 303 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
Section 303 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 provides that any person accused of an offence before a Criminal Court, or against whom proceedings are instituted under this Code, may of right be defended by a pleader of his choice.
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The Code confers on the accused person a right to consult and to be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice. The right guaranteed by this provision is indispensable to the fair administration of over adversary system of criminal justice. An accused has a right to be defended by a counsel of his choice not only at the trial but at the hearing of the appeal also. There is no provision in this section to be represented by a person other than a lawyer.
However, under Section 2(q) of the Code, an accused person cannot claim as of right to be represented by a private person, but he may be represented by such person with the permission of the Court.
The right to counsel would however remain empty if the accused due to his poverty or indigent conditions has no means to engage a counsel for his defence. Article 21 of the Constitution of India implicitly requires a State to make provision for grant of free legal services to an accused who is unable to engage a lawyer on account of reasons such as poverty, indigence or incommunicado situation. Article 39-A of the Constitution of India provides that the State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities. To an extent the Code provided legal aid to accused at State expense in certain cases in Section 304.