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Special court for coal block cases, Subramanium to be special public prosecutor: SC

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the setting up of a special court to try all the coal block allocation cases. It also suggested senior advocate Gopal Subramanium be named special public prosecutor for these cases, a move that may cause some discomfort for the Narendra Modi government, which hadn't been too keen to endorse his candidacy as Supreme Court judge. Subramanium had subsequently withdrawn his candidacy.

Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the government, insisted that any such appointment had to be made with attorney general Mukul Rohatgi's consent to avoid embarrassment to anyone. This will, of course, depend on whether Subramanium consents to undertake the task, which may drag on for years.

Subramanium's name was recently shot down for elevation as a top court judge by the government amidst adverse leaks in the media, prompting him to withdraw his consent to be a judge and accuse the Modi administration of targeting him for his role as amicus curiae in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

"I could not persuade him to do something. Maybe you can persuade him to do something else," chief justice RM Lodha told CBI counsel Amarendra Sharan, much to the amusement of a crowded court.

Justice Lodha, who was abroad when the Subramanium controversy erupted, had after his return tried to prevail upon Subramanium to take back his decision to withdraw his candidacy.

Subramanium is one of the leading criminal lawyers in the country and handled the Parliament attack case for CBI and the Ajmal Kasab case for Maharashtra. He has been the CBI's lawyer of choice to prosecute almost all complicated criminal cases.

Should Subramanium agree to be special prosecutor, he will be pursuing several cases regarding alleged allocations to ineligible companies or collusion between government officials and private entities from 1993 to 2005.

The CBI probe into the allocations spans the coal ministry tenures of Desari Narayan Rao and former prime minister Manmohan Singh. CBI is probing allocations under court orders on two PILs challenging the allotments.

One was filed by advocate Manohar Lal Sharma and the other by NGO Common Cause, represented by AAP leader and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

At the last hearing of the case, the court had asked Bhushan to suggest the names of independent public prosecutors to try the case. When the hearing resumed on Friday, Bhushan handed over four names, including that of Dayan Krishnan. But Sharma objected to this, insisting that the names must come from the CBI's panel.

The two sides, however, agreed to Subramanium's name, breaking the deadlock and prompting the court to tell the CBI to find out whether he would accept the task. He would in that case be assisted by ateam of CBI public prosecutors.

Source: The Economic Times