The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday cited Supreme Court rulings in the Jain Hawala Diary case while holding that the State government was correct in its decision to select and appoint T.K. Rajendran as Director General of Police, despite his alleged involvement in the gutkha scam.
Pointing out that the only material available against Mr. Rajendran was entries made by a gutkha manufacturer in his book of accounts that purported to show bribe payments to public servants through middlemen, Justices K.K. Sasidharan and G.R. Swaminathan said that the Supreme Court had held that such entries would not be sufficient to frame charges against the alleged beneficiaries.
They recalled that the issue before the apex court in the 1993 Central Bureau of Investigation versus V.C. Shukla, popularly known as the Jain Hawala Diary case, was whether, on account of the entries made in the books of Jain Brothers with regard to payments made to BJP leader L.K. Advani and former Union Minister V.C. Shukla, criminal prosecution could be launched against them. In that case, the entire edifice of the prosecution’s case was built on the diaries, files and related entries.
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After considering elaborately Section 34 of the Indian Evidence Act, the Supreme Court indicated that even if the book of accounts had been regularly kept in the course of business, still it would not be sufficient to frame charges against alleged beneficiaries.
The Bench said this year, the apex court had followed the judgment passed in the Jain Hawala Diary case in its judgment in Common Cause (a registered society) versus Union of India.