In a far-reaching judgement, the Delhi High Court yesterday quashed the charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy against BJP chief L K Advani, former Union minister V C Shukla and the Jain brothers in the Rs 65 crore hawala case, ruling that the Jain diaries were not admissible as evidence.
Allowing the petitions by Advani, Shukla and the Jains, Justice M Shamim in his 70-page order held that the two Jain diaries were not admissible as evidence under the provisions of Section 10, 21 and 34 of the Evidence Act as these were not the books of account kept in regular course of the business by the Jains.
Rejecting the CBI contention to treat the diaries as evidence, Justice Shamim said on the basis of the entries in the diaries there is nothing prima facie to suggest that the petitioners had accepted money for any motive or reward or had showed some favour to the Jains in their capacity as public servants. There is no evidence against the petitioners except the diaries, note books and loose sheets of papers and these are of a nature, which cannot be converted into legal evidence against the petitioners, Justice Shamim held.
He said in the absence of any substantiative evidence, the diaries could at best be described only as circumstantial evidence, but the circumstantial evidence in criminal cases should be beyond any reasonable doubt.
Describing the CBI charge-sheet as vague, the judge said that no presumption about the guilt of the petitioners should be drawn on the basis of the entries in the diaries, instead the only presumption drawn from these are regarding their innocence.
Quashing the trial against the petitioners, the court set aside the May 8, August 19 and September 6 orders of last year, framing the charges against them under 120-B of Indian Penal Code and Section 7, 13(2) read with 13(1) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act. CBI had chargesheeted 29 politicians and 16 bureaucrats including, Advani and Shukla, in the hawala case. Reacting to the High Court verdict senior Supreme Court lawyer Kapil Sibal said the judgement would principally benefit all the accused in the case.
However, Vineet Narain, who had filed the public interest litigation in the Supreme Court in the hawala scam accused CBI of lopsided investigation. He said CBI should move the Supreme Court in appeal. If CBI failed to do so, I, as a petitioner will file an additional special leave petition in the apex court, Narain in a press statement said. CBI did not make any attempt to collect any evidence whatsoever to strengthen its case requiring thorough research and custodial interrogation, which was never resorted to by them. Describing the trial court orders on framing the charges and taking congnizance of the CBI charge-sheet against the petitioners as bad in law, Justice Shamim said the prosecution had failed to specify any date of the alleged payment made by the Jains.
