Brushing aside the stiff resistance of the Centre to the CBI proposal for appointing senior advocate Udai Lalit as special public prosecutor for the 2G scam case, the Supreme Court using its discretionary powers under the Constitution on Monday ordered him to take charge of the case and put it on fast track.
Though the government has the “prerogative” to appoint the public prosecutor but a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly after much dithering by the Centre on the issue during past two weeks, used apex court’s discretionary powers under Articles 136 and 142 of the Constitution to order Mr Lalit’s appointment as was desired by the CBI and also protected it from being challenged in any court in the country.
While directing the CBI to put the trial on the day-to-day hearing to ensure expediting it as early as possible, the bench made it clear that if any problem at all arises related to the appointment of the prosecutor, all applications regarding it would only be filed in the apex court.
“No other court in the country would entertain any application challenging the appointment of the special public prosecutor or his assistants,” the bench said while fixing next hearing for April 26, two days after the CBI’s next deadline for filing of the supplementary chargesheet.
After analysing various provisions of the law and past rulings of the apex court on the issue, the bench said “we are unable to accept the contention of the Union of India and we hold that in the interest of a fair prosecution of the case, appointment of Mr Lalit is eminently suitable.”
Mr Lalit was also given full authority by the apex court to select the team of his assistants to conduct the trial.
Under Article 136 and 142 the apex court has wide discretionary powers to pass any order even beyond the provisions of the law in the interest of the nation and in the public interest.
“The supplementary chargesheet, which will deal mainly with the payment of bribe to the public servants, named in the first chargesheet (including former telecom minister A. Raja and some former telecom officials) would be ready before April 24. Since April 24 is Sunday, it will be filed before the deadline,” CBI’s special counsel K.K. Venugopal said.