Hawala scandal
The Hawala scandal or hawala scam was an Indian political scandal involving payments allegedly sent by politicians (black money) through four hawala brokers, the Jain brothers. It was a US$18 million bribery scandal that implicated some of the country's leading politicians.
In 1991, an arrest linked to militants in Kashmir led to a raid on hawala brokers, revealing evidence of large-scale payments to national politicians.[1] Those accused included L. K. Advani, V. C. Shukla, P. Shiv Shankar, Sharad Yadav, Balram Jakhar, and Madan Lal Khurana.[2] The prosecution that followed was partly prompted by a public interest petition (see Vineet Narain), and yet the court cases of the Hawala scandal eventually all collapsed without convictions. Many were acquitted in 1997 and 1998, partly because the hawala records (including diaries) were judged in court to be inadequate as the main evidence.[2] The Central Bureau of Investigation's role was criticised. In concluding the Vineet Narain case, the Supreme Court of India directed that the Central Vigilance Commission should be given a supervisory role over the CBI.[1]
See also
The Jain Hawala story was broken by two Delhi-based journalists Ram Bahadur Rai and Rajesh Joshi, working for the Hindi daily Jansatta. Then Vineet Narain, the journalist filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme court of India.
Further reading
- Vineet Narain, 1999, Corruption, Terrorism and Hawala Scandal in Hindi ebook
- Kapoor, S. (1996), Bad Money, Bad Politics: The Untold Hawala Story, Har–Anand Publications, Delhi - cited (p. 22) by Ashok V. Desai in The Economics and Politics of Transition to an Open Market Economy: India, OECD Working Paper 155 accessed at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/18/3/1921937.pdf 26 May 2011
- Hawala. An Informal Payment System and Its Use to Finance Terrorism by Sebastian R. Müller (Dec. 2006), ISBN 3-86550-656-9
- Supreme Court judgement on 2 March 1998 that quashed CBI chargesheets against LK Advani, VC Shukla and Jain brothers
Notes
- 1 2 "Vineet Narain Case, Directions of the Court". 2 November 2006. Archived from the original on 2 April 2007.
- 1 2 Sudha Mahalingam (21 Mar – 3 Apr 1998). "Jain Hawala Case: Diaries as evidence". Frontline magazine. 15 (6). Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 2 Nov 2006.