Charges to be framed against Sharad Yadav in hawala case

A Delhi court on Friday decided to frame charges against Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav and the Jain brothers in the Rs 650 million Jain hawala case.

Special Judge V B Gupta said there was sufficient ground to frame charges of criminal conspiracy and corruption against Yadav. The judge also announced framing of charges against the Jain brothers -- S K Jain, J K Jain, B R Jain and their employee N K Jain.

Yadav is the third politician against whom charges are being framed. The other two are BJP president L K Advani and Congress leader V C Shukla.

The Delhi high court quashed charges against Advani and Shukla saying that diary entries cannot be used as legal evidence against the accused. Charges against several other politicians including Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia, N D Tiwari, R K Dhawan and Madan Lal Khurana were also dropped by the same court.

The judge fixed August 21 for formal framing of charges against Yadav.

Judge Gupta said it is established that Yadav accepted Rs 500,000 as illegal gratification from the Jains while he was a member of Parliament and a Union minister during November 1989-March 1990.

Yadav himself had admitted the receipt of the money in a television interview on August 20, 1994 and later at a media conference in January 1996, the judge noted.

UNI