New Delhi, June 18: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today filed an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging a Delhi High Court judgement quashing charges against Bharatiya Janata Party president L K Advani, and Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla, in the Rs 65 crore hawala case.

In its special leave petition (SLP), the CBI has questioned the legality of the High Court verdict which said that mere entries in the Jain diaries could not be construed as legal evidence.

Two diaries of the Jain brothers and some loose paper sheets had entries about various payments made to 115 persons, including politicians and public servants, amounting to Rs 65.47 crores between 1988 and 1991.

The investigating agency, which had filed a total of 31 chargesheets against the accused, also countered the High Court ruling arguing that the diaries were admissible as evidence under Section 10 and 34 of the Indian Evidence Act.

The High Court, which had dropped charges against Advani and Shukla on April 8, had observed ``mere production of the diaries does not lead us anywhere unless the contents of the said documents are proved by proper evidence''. Following this 70-page High Court order, special judge V B Gupta dropped charges against 16 prominent politicians. These included former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana, Madhav Rao Scindia, N D Tewari, Arjun Singh, R K Dhawan, Kamal Nath and Buta Singh.

The 90-day period of appealing against the order was to expire in the first week of July.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.