Arjun Singh, Scindia, Tiwari and Dhawan cleared in hawala case

The special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Wednesday cleared former Congress ministers Madhavrao Scindia, Arjun Singh, Narain Dutt Tiwari and R K Dhawan in the multi-crore Jain hawala case.

Pronouncing the 100-page judgment in a jam-packed court room, Special Judge V B Gupta ruled there was no evidence on record to frame charges against the four. ''After going through the available material on record which includes the CBI chargesheets, statements of witnesses recorded under section 61 of the Criminal Procedure Code and arguments of the counsels of the four parties, prima facie I found there is no evidence against any of the accused in all the four cases which can be converted into legal evidences,'' Judge Gupta said.

''Under these circumstances the accused are hereby discharged and their security and bail bonds stands cancelled,'' he ruled.

On May 15, the court had discharged former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana, the three Jain brothers and their manager on the same grounds.

The CBI had on January 23, 1996 chargesheeted V C Shukla and Scindia for accepting payments from the Jain brothers.

Kamal Nath, the then Union minister for forests and environment, resigned after he was chargesheeted on February 19. The next day, two more ministers in the P V Narasimha Rao government -- Buta Singh and Arvind Netam -- were named. They immediately put in their papers.

Two days later, the CBI filed chargesheets against 14 politicians including R K Dhawan, C K Jaffer Sharief, Buta Singh, Netam and N D Tiwari. Further, the sleuths sought sanction to prosecute Khurana whom it chargesheeted on March 6. Khurana resigned the same day.

On February 29, the designated CBI court issued non-bailable warrants against nine politicians including Bharatiya Janata Party president L K Advani and and senior Congress leader V C Shukla.

The next day, the Supreme Court asked the Bureau to report directly to the court concerned in the case.

On March 12 this year, the CBI counsel conceded before the court that the Jain diaries were not books of accounts as per section 34 of the Indian Evidence Act. Earlier, Advani and Shukla had petitioned the high court to quash the charges against them.

On April 8, Justice Mohammad Shamim quashed charges against Advani and Shukla stating the Jain diaries were not admissible as evidence.

UNI