NEW DELHI, May 5: Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Union Minister for Tourism and Parliamentary Affairs Madan Lal Khurana are among 19 politicians today discharged by the Delhi High Court in the Rs 65 crore Jain Hawala case. The court would, however, examine the charges against former Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar and Janata Dal President Sharad Yadav.Justice A K Srivastava discharged the politicians in the light of the recent apex court judgement that the Jain diaries were not admissible as evidence. The Central Bureau of Investigation counsel, N Natrajan too submitted in the court today that the agency at present did not have any corroborative evidence against the accused persons vis-a-vis the Jain diaries in which alleged payment to the politicians by Jain brothers were noted in a coded manner.
Others discharged from the case include former Union ministers Madhav Rao Scindia, Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, C K Jaffer Sharief, Buta Singh, R K Dhawan, Ajit Panja, K Natwar Singh, Kamal Nath,Harmohan Dhawan, Motilal Vohra, P Shiv Shanker, Chand Ram, B D Dhakne, Ranjit Singh, L P Sahi and Arvind Netam.
The CBI submitted that apart from the Jain diaries, which has been rendered inadmissible in the absence of any corroborative evidence, there were evidence in the manner of confession by Sharad Yadav regarding receipt of bribe from the Jains.
In the case of Jakhar, the CBI said there was evidence to show that tickets from foreign travels for the relatives of the former Speaker were bought by the Jain brothers.
Justice Srivastava observed that these two cases were different from others and would be examined on May 27.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
