Ghaziabad judge denies trying to hamper CBI in PF scam
By IANSWednesday, September 8, 2010
NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Wednesday was told by the District and Session Judge of Ghaziabad that he had not done anything to derail the CBI court’s proceedings in the Ghaziabad District Courts provident fund scam.
Ghaziabad District and Session Judge Vishnu Chandra Gupta in his affidavit denied that he had asked the District Government Counsel to take back from the CBI the CDs of local police relating its earlier investigations into the scam.
Gupta said this to the apex court special bench of Justice D.K. Jain, Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice G.S. Singhvi in response to its notice on the CBI plea seeking the transfer of trial from Ghaziabad to Delhi.
The court issued notice in response to an affidavit filed by the CBI stating that the District and Session Judge was interfering in the CBI courts proceedings by giving verbal directions to the District Government Counsel.
On the strength of this statement, the CBI has sought the transfer of trial from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi. The counsel appearing for some of the accused in the PF scam opposed the CBI plea for the transfer of trial.
The District and Session Judge “emphatically” denied the CBI statement that he asked the counsel of the local police to agitate the matter in the court and suggested that they should file an application to get the documents pertaining to a private person.
The affidavit further said that it was not correct to apprehend that that there was likelihood that 25 witnesses who were Class III and Class IV employees of Ghaziabad courts would be influenced during the course of the trail.
Since the service of notice on the CBI application seeking transfer of trial was not complete, the hearing was adjourned and the matter would be taken up on Oct 21, 2010.
The scam relates to the withdrawal of Rs.6.58 crore from the provident fund accounts of Ghaziabad court’s subordinate staff and making it available for some judges.
