More than two decades after it triggered a political landslide, a city court has discharged SK Jain, his employee JK Jain and others from charges of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act violations in the infamous Jain hawala case. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Jyoti Kler, in a judgment pronounced recently, discharged SK Jain and JK Jain, the alleged writer of the dairies, Mohd Ameer Deen Habib and SSO Syed Arif, saying there was no evidence to prove charges of violation of foreign exchange.
The scandal involved payments allegedly sent by politicians through four hawala brokers. Those whose names had cropped up in the case included BJP leader lK Advani, late Congress leaders VC Shukla, Madhavrao Scindia and P. Shiv Shankar and Janatal Dal leader Sharad Yadav. They were all acquitted following the Supreme Court judgement.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had alleged that SK Jain had converted foreign currency into Indian rupees without obtaining permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The ED had chargesheeted JK Jain with abetting the crime.
"In order to substantiate the charge under Section 8(1) and 8(2) of FERA, at least the broad essential ingredients of the alleged charge has to be shown. But there is total absence of the ingredients even by way of allegation, much less in matter of prima facie proof," the court said.
"There is no evidence to show that there was any person from whom the foreign exchange was received. There is no evidence as to how the foreign exchange was acquired."
The case was an offshoot of the ‘Jain Hawala Diary Case’ registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 1991. The CBI's cases against many political bigwigs had fallen flat in the Supreme Court due to lack of any corroborative evidence. The CBI had seized documents which it claimed had revealed that JK Jain had been receiving money from different sources including SSO Syed Arif for and on behalf of the Jain brothers.