The union government has objected to the CBI’s choice of special prosecutor Uday U Lalit to represent the agency in the 2G scam case in which many ‘big fish’ have been caught.
The Union government, which has been facing flak from the Supreme Court on various scandals, has objected to the CBI’s choice of special prosecutor Uday U Lalit to represent the agency in the 2G scam case in which many ‘big fish’ have been caught.
The government said Lalit does not meet the eligibility criteria as he had never been a standing counsel for the government, a condition stipulated under the prevention of money laundering law.
The Supreme Court had asked the Centre to issue notification for the appointment of Lalit by April 5.
Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati told a bench of justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly that under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, a special prosecutor must have worked under the state or the Union government for at least seven years.
On this, CBI counsel and noted constitutional lawyer KK
Venugopal said Lalit had been in the lawyer’s panel for the Maharashtra government and the Centre for 15 years and five years respectively. Thus he fulfills the criteria. The AG did not agree to this and said being in the panel is not sufficient and one should be the government’s standing counsel for seven years and sought one week time from the court to come out with other name for the post.
However, judges pointed out that the Act does not mention the word “standing counsel” and the AG’s objection was highly technical which should be given “reasonable” interpretation.
The judges who had found Lalit as one of the most competent persons for this case, allowed the government to make its stand clear on the issue by Friday. Vahanvati said there are certain apprehensions that Lalit’s appointment as the SPP could be challenged at any stage and it may derail the entire prosecution of the case.
The CBI has registered cases against former Telecom Minister A Raja and others under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
On April 1 last, Venugopal informed the court about Lalit’s credentials and said he is the fit person to do complete justice with the case.
Venugopal had told the court that the agency had been facing lot of difficulties in finalising the name of SPP to lead a team of its prosecutors in assisting the special court of judge OP Saini for trial of the 2G case. Interestingly, Lalit had also appeared for actor Salman Khan in the black buck shooting case. Khan got bail from the court in Rajasthan.
Most of the senior counsel has been hired by one or the other party involved in the case. In its charge sheet the CBI put the loss to the exchequer caused by Raja’s arbitrary allotment of 2G scam licenses in 2008 at Rs34000 crore.
The CAG said it has cost Rs1.76 lakh crore and DoT minister Kapil Sibal said there was ‘zero loss’.
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