Jakhar, Sharad In Hawala Net, 19 Discharged

The Delhi High Court yesterday discharged 19 politicians, including Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Madan Lal Khurana, from the Rs 65 crore Jain-hawala case in the light of the recent Supreme Court order but would examine cases against Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav and former Speaker Balram Jakhar and the Jain brothers.

Justice A K Srivastava discharged these politicians as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) counsel N Natrajan contended that the CBI at present did not have any corroborative evidence against the public servants vis-a-vis the Jain diaries in which alleged payment to the politicians by Jain brothers were noted in a coded manner.

Others discharged from the case were Madhavrao Scindia, Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, C K Jaffer Sharief, Buta Singh, R K Dhawan, Ajit Panja, K Natwar Singh, Kamal Nath, Harmohan Dhawan, Motilal Vohra, P Shiv Shanker, Chand Ram, B D Dhakne, Ranjit Singh, L P Sahi and Arvind Netam.

The CBI said that apart from the Jain diaries, which has been rendered inadmissible in the absence of any corroborative evidence, there were evidence in the manner of confession by Sharad Yadav regarding receipt of bribe from Jains.

In the case of Jakhar, the CBI said there was evidence to show that tickets from foreign travels for the relatives of the former Speaker were bought by Jains.

Justice Srivastava observed that these two cases were different from the others and would be examined on May 27.

The CBI also said that the Jains - S K Jain, N K Jain, B R Jain and their secretary J K Jain, were liable to face charges of criminal conspiracy separately and that this case was different from the main hawala case.

It was originally alleged by CBI that the Jains paid huge bribes to politicians and public servants to further their business interest and that the bribe money was arranged through hawala channel.

The Supreme Court had discharged BJP leader L K Advani and Congress leader V C Shukla from the case saying the Jain diaries were inadmissible in the absence of any corroborative evidence.

After hearing the counsel for different parties, justice Srivastava said in the light of the CBI counsels statement that there was no corroborative evidence against the public servants at present, revision petitions filed by the agency against discharge of several politicians fail.

The court said that from May 27 onwards the remaining cases against Sharad Yadav, Balram Jakhar and the Jains would be heard on a day to day basis.