HC seeks report on action against Advani, Sinha 15 others

After perusing a fresh status report by the government, the court said it was very much concerned about the matter and taking into consideration the steps taken by the authorities to recover the money.

The court told advocate A K Singh, appearing for a local journalist, Om Prakash Tapas, who brought the matter before the court in the form of a public interest litigation (PIL) that it would see what further steps should be taken in the case.

"We are also concerned that public money must not be allowed to be laundered like this," the bench observed.

The court also directed Delhi Police Commissioner to take appropriate steps on Tapas’ complaint regarding the alleged anonymous threats received by him from various quarters.

Besides Advani and Sinha, Union Minister Ajit Panja and Sharad Yadav’s names also figured in the list submitted by the petitioner, against whom the I-T department had carried out the investigations.

I-T department’s Additional Director (Investigation) B D Nha in an affidavit had admitted that department’s officials D C Agarwal and Y K Batra had investigated the matter against 18 hawala accused persons mentioned in the list.

He stated that separate appraisal reports against each of them were forwarded to the concerned assessing officials.

The affidavit said no investigation was done against Babu Ram whose name was also mentioned in the list.

Among others whose names figured in the list are; former deputy prime minister Devi Lal, his son Ranjit Singh and grandson Pradeep Singh, Congress leaders – Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, Buta Singh, K Natwar Singh, R K Dhawan and S Krishna Kumar.

The list also contained names of former Union minister Arif Mohammed Khan, former bureaucrats H K Khan, Prakash Bhatia and Basan Ravdhankne.

The I-T Department’s affidavit also had stated that it had not received any written request from CBI for supply of the investigative reports prepared by Aggarwal and Batra.

The PIL claimed that Aggarwal in his report had found that out of the 41 persons chargesheeted in the Hawala case by CBI, 22 had "unaccountable black money".

The subsequent report submitted by Batra made it clear that out of 22 persons, eleven had assets "disproportionate" to their known sources of income, the petition said.

It claimed that the department had prepared three reports against the hawala accused between 1997 and 1999, which stated that "there was lot of difference between their income and assets" during the relevant period.