All discharged in Jain hawala case

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 31. The curtain was rung down today on the five- year- old multicrore Jain hawala case involving the country's top politicians and bureaucrats.

The Special Judge, Mr. V.B. Gupta, discharged all the seven accused and thereby disposed of the last case pending before him. Interestingly, it was the first of a series of chargesheets filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation that had created upheavals in the political firmament.

The discharge in the case began with Mr. Justice Mohammed Shamim of the Delhi High Court, now Chairman of the National Commission of the Minorities, quashing Mr. Gupta's orders for framing charges against the Home Minister, Mr. Lal Krishna Advani, and the senior Congress(I) leader, Mr. V.C. Shukla, and the Jain brothers.

The High Court had quashed the lower court's orders on the ground that diaries and loose sheets on their own were not sufficient evidence to frame charges against the accused as the CBI had failed to gather corroborative evidence.

Thereafter, the CBI went on an appeal to the Supreme Court but the apex court refused to interfere with it.

Subsequently began the serial discharge of the accused persons by the lower court. However, the trial court had found sufficient evidence to frame charges against the Civil Aviation Minister, Mr. Sharad Yadav, and the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr. Balram Jakhar. But they too were later discharged by the Delhi High Court.

Mr. Gupta discharged all the seven accused- the former Neyveli Lignite Corporation Chairman, Mr. M.P. Narayanan, its former Executive Director, Mr. N. Venkatesan, the former Deputy General Manager, Mr. P.R. Desikachari and the former Chief Engineer, Mr. S. Ranganathan, Mr. N.K. Jain, Mr. J.K. Jain, and Mr. S.C. Gupta.

``Prima facie, there is nothing on record to show that any of the accused who are public servants have obtained any pecuniary advantage either for themselves or for someone else,'' the judge observed in his 132-page order.

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