The designated trial court yesterday exonerated former Union ministers Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, Madhavrao Scindia and R K Dhawan in the Rs 65-crore hawala scam, consequent to the Delhi High Courts order last month rejecting the Jain diaries as inadmissible evidence.
Special judge V B Gupta in his 100-page order said the CBI has failed to produce before the court any material, apart from the Jain diaries, which could be converted into legal evidence.
Gupta said the trial court was bound by the High Courts order passed in the cases of BJP chief L K Advani and former Union minister V C Shukla on April eight rejecting the entries in the two Jain diaries as legal evidence unless corroborated by some independent evidence.
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Admittedly there is no evidence with the prosecution to prove the contents and truth of the entries in the said diaries and some loose sheets of papers except the reports of finger prints and handwriting experts and statements of certain witnesses, the judge said.
He said, since the case is based on circumstantial evidence, the law provides that such evidence are incapable of explaining any other hypothesis except the guilt of the accused.
The CBI had charged Singh with receiving Rs 20.50 lakh as illegal gratification from Jain brothers S K Jain, N K Jain, B R Jain and their manager J K Jain, who were also discharged as co-accused.
Tiwari was charged of receiving Rs 25.88 lakh while Scindia and R K Dhawan were accused of having received of Rs 1.79 crore and Rs 50 lakh respectively.