Buta, Kamalnath Discharged In Hawala Case

A Delhi court yesterday dropped charges against four former Union ministers Buta Singh, Kamalnath, B D Dhakney and Chand Ram in the Rs 65 crore hawala case, saying there was no prima facie evidence about their involvement in the scam.

Special judge V B Gupta, in his 87-page judgement, said prima facie, I find there is no evidence against any of the accused persons in all the above mentioned four cases which can be converted into legal evidence.

Gupta, in his order which was passed in the light of the April 8 high court order quashing charges against BJP president L K Advani and former Union minister V C Shukla, also discharged the three Jain brothers S K Jain, N K Jain and B R Jain their manager J K Jain and another accused S S Sandhu.

The high court had dropped chiggers against Shukla and Advani in the case saying mere entries in diary are not admissible as legal evidence.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had charged that the three former Union ministers Kamalnath, Singh, Dhakney and Chand Ram had received Rs 22 lakh, Rs 7 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1.2 lakh respectively from the Jain brothers during 1988-90.

Following the high court order, the special judge had earlier dropped charges against former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana, former Union ministers Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, Madhavrao Scindia and R K Dhawan.

Meanwhile, CBI sources said the agency would file a special leave petition soon in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court order.