A division bench comprising Justice M K Mukherjee and Justice S S M Quadri, while quashing charges framed against Suresh Budharnal Kalani alias Pappu Kalani and Aken Kumar Gajendra Rai Desai, said the evidence taken into account by the Tada court while framing charges were ``inadmissible''.

The prosecution had alleged that a group of persons armed with automatic firearms including AK-47 assault rifles stormed into a ward in the hospital on September 12, 1992, and opened fire on Shailesh Haldankar, a member of the Arun Gawli gang who had been admitted to the hospital in police custody. The indiscriminate firing had resulted in the death of Haldankar and two policemen on guard duty and injuries to six others.

The prosecution had said, ``the incident was the outcome of a conspiracy hatched by Dawood Ibrahim and his men to avenge the murderof Dawood's brother-in-law, Ibrahim Ismail Parkar, who was killed by the Gawli gang.

The Tada court, taking cognisance of the various documents placed before it by the police, had framed charges against Kalani and Desai.

It was alleged by the prosecution that Kalani had a meeting on September 2, 1992, with one of the accused Jayawant Suryarao at a holiday resort where they conspired to kill Haldankar.

However, the Supreme Court noted that the statement of the witnesses disclosed that Suryarao, President of Bhiwandi Nizampura Municipal Council, and Kalani only discussed about a no-confidence motion to be brought in the council.

The court said, ``it is pertinent to mention that it is not the prosecution case that the murder of Haldankar was even remotely connected with the above no-confidence motion.''

``On the contrary, as noticed earlier, it is a positive case that the murder was the outcome of a gang rivalry,'' the court said.

The designated court could not have, therefore, drawn the presumptionof a conspiracy to kill Haldankar as statements of the two witnesses ``do not afford, by any stretch of imagination, any foundation for the same,'' the court said.

While allowing the appeals of Kalani and Desai, the bench quashed the charges framed against the two.