Supreme Court rejects govt’s stand, forces it to hire Lalit as 2G prosecutor

Overruling the government’s prerogative to appoint a special public prosecutor, the Supreme Court today invoked extraordinary powers to direct it to name senior advocate U U Lalit — a candidate the government doesn’t favour — as lead prosecutor for the 2G trial, saying the decision will “secure substantive justice”.
Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly steamrolled the government’s objection, to go ahead with the appointment hardly 48 hours before the trial starts at a special court exclusively set up for the case.
As per Section 46 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, it is the Centre that may appoint the special public prosecutor.
But the Bench today declared that Article 142 of the Constitution “empowers” it to appoint Lalit. “We are issuing this direction in the interest of substantive justice,” the court observed. However, the court gave the government enough leeway to appoint a suitable person among the present CBI prosecutors in the team led by Lalit. Any complaints about the appointments would only be addressed to it, the court said.