NEW YORK (Reuters) - The public does not have the right to see court applications and orders for wiretaps in the Galleon hedge fund insider trading case, lawyers for accused fund founder Raj Rajaratnam argued yesterday.

US prosecutors have described the probe as the biggest hedge fund insider trading case on record in the US, in which 21 traders, lawyers and executives were charged last October and November. Much of their evidence was gathered using court-approved wiretaps and co-operators.

Eight people, some of them Rajaratnam's former friends and business associates or one-time Galleon employees, have signed co-operation agreements with federal prosecutors and may be called upon to testify at criminal trials.

"Mr. Rajaratnam respectfully requests that the Court deny the government's motion for a procedure to address the public's right to access wiretap applications and orders," Rajaratnam's main lawyer, John Dowd, wrote in a Manhattan federal court memorandum.

He argued that "no such right exists" and cited an appeals court ruling last year involving The New York Times newspaper's efforts to obtain records of wiretaps in an investigation of a prostitution ring that led to the resignation in 2008 of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Dowd said the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York "has twice held that 'good cause' to unseal wiretap applications and orders can be shown - and can only be shown - by an 'aggrieved person'." He said the public at large is not an "aggrieved person".

Lawyers for Rajaratnam and another principal defendant, former New Castle Funds LLC trader Danielle Chiesi, have previously said they would ask presiding judge Richard Holwell to suppress about 18,000 recordings as evidence on the grounds that they violated their privacy and constitutional rights.

Rajaratnam and Chiesi have pleaded not guilty to fraud charges accusing them of making as much as $49 million in illegal profits in trades from confidential tips.

The trial is scheduled to start on October 25. Both have requested separate trials.