NEW DELHI, August 13: Janata Dal President Sharad Yadav today moved the Delhi high court seeking quashing of the designated court decision to take cognisance of the CBI charge-sheet and frame charges against him in the multi-crore hawala case.

Yadav's counsel A K Bajpai filed the petition running to over 190 pages in the high court registry and the case is expected to come up for hearing tomorrow.

Special Judge V B Gupta on August 2 had decided to frame charges against Yadav after taking into account the CBI charge that he had received Rs five lakh from the key accused, the Jain brothers, in the Rs 65-crore hawala scam.

The judge, in his 154-page order, also took note of Yadav's alleged admission before media of receiving Rs three lakh from the Jain brothers for party funds.

Gupta said there was sufficient material on record to frame charges under Section 120-B (Criminal conspiracy) Section 7, 11, 12 13 (2) read with Section 14 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).

He said, ``Even if the Jain diaries are not regarded as admissible evidence following the Delhi high court order, in this case there is sufficient other material to prima facie order the trial of Mr Yadav and the Jain brothers.''

The trial court had fixed August 21 for formal framing of charges against Yadav. The CBI charge-sheet had accused Yadav of receiving Rs five lakh as ``illegal gratification'' from the Jain brothers while being a public servant (MP) between 1988-90.

Yadav had become the first politician against whom the trial court decided to frame charges after the Delhi high court had ordered quashing of charges against BJP chief L K Advani and former Union minister V C Shukla.

The high court had held that the Jain diaries, which were the only evidence against Advani and Shukla of allegedly receiving bribes from the Jain brothers, were inadmissible as evidence as per law.

Following the high court order, the trial court has so far discharged Congress leaders Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, Madhavrao Scindia, Buta Singh, Kamalnath, R K Dhawan, P Shiv Shankar, Moti Lal Vora, Ajit Panja, BJP's Madan Lal Khurana and Yashwant Singh, and ministers in the Chandrasekhar government B D Dhakne and Chand Ram.

The charges against former Union minister Ashok Sen were dropped after his death in August last year.

The hawala case is still making waves with reports of many politicians being involved in the multi-crore scam.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.