The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today approached a local court, seeking issuance of arrest warrants against six former judges in connection with the Rs 6.53-crore provident fund (PF) scam.
Opposing the pleas of the judges, citing one reason or the other for their non-appearance, the agency counsel informed special CBI judge A K Singh’s court the judges had not been cooperating and an arrest warrant should be issued for ensuring their presence at hearings.
The judges include R P Mishra, R P Yadav, R N Mishra, A K Singh, R S Choubey (all former district judges) and the then additional district judge, Arun Kumar. Yadav, R N Mishra and Singh later retired as judges of Allahabad High Court.
After hearing both the parties, the designated judge dismissed the plea of the six judges and asked them to appear for the next hearing, scheduled on January 31.
The court had summoned the judges but none of them appeared even though a chargesheet was filed against them. CBI chargesheeted 78 people, including three former judges of the Allahabad high court and three district judges.
The case took a new turn after key accused Ashutosh Asthana died under mysterious circumstances at the Dasna jail.
The CBI claimed to have found details in the scam wherein hard-earned PF money of class III and IV employees of Ghaziabad courts was illegally siphoned out and lavishly spent on furniture, crockery, electronic gadgets and appliances, rail tickets, taxi fare and other luxury items for the judges.
As the treasury officer, Asthana was tasked with safeguarding the PF money of employees. Allegedly, he did not even think twice before loosening the strings of the illegally-filled purse to meet the expenses for transporting articles — furniture, crockery, utensils, again bought from PF money — to the residences of the judges.
