NEW DELHI, July 23: Former Uttar Pradesh and Kerala governors Moti Lal Vora and P Shiv Shankar, former Union ministers Ajit Panja and Yashwant Sinha today joined the list of over a dozen politicians, discharged so far in the multi-crore hawala case as a designated court here quashed CBI chargesheets against them.

The special judge, V B Gupta citing Delhi High Court order discharging the Bharatiya Janata Party chief, L K Advani in the case as basis for quashing the charges against the four, in his 130-page order said ``there is no material on record to frame charges against them.''

The high court in its April 8 order in Advani's and former union minister V C Shukla's case had dismissed the two `Jain diaries' as `inadmissible evidence' under the Indian Evidence Act. ``After going through the entire material on record -- the chargesheets, statements of witnesses and documents produced by the prosecution (CBI), prima facie, I find that there is no evidence against any of the four accused persons which can be converted into legal evidence,'' Gupta said.

The court also discharged the three Jain brothers - S K Jain, B R Jain, N K Jain and their employee J K Jain, and one Madan Walia, who were co-accused in the cases against the four politicians. With today's order, 15 politicians have so far been discharged. The CBI had chargesheeted 31 politicians and 17 others in the scam.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.