Ghaziabad: As a cloak of
mystery surrounds the death of the prime accused in the
multi-crore Provident Fund scam deepened, the Uttar Pradesh
government on Monday ordered multi-level probes into it while the
Centre said the case should not be closed.
The issue also reached the Supreme Court with the
Ghaziabad Bar Association seeking constitution of a special
investigating team to probe the death of Ashutosh Astana, a
court staff.
Astana, who was named the prime accused in the Rs.23
crore scam in which the names of a number of higher and lower
judiciary, including that of a judge of the apex court, had
cropped up, was found dead in Dasna jail on Saturday and he
was suspected to have been poisoned.
In all, the state government ordered three probes.
First it ordered an administrative inquiry by District
Magistrate R Ramesh Kumar, then another by DIG (Jail) A K
Panda and a magisterial inquiry.
With questions being raised over the reasons behind hid
death, Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said the death was
"shocking" and a probe was needed, though he did not think
there was conspiracy or anything which has led to his death.
Moily said "I think the nation would like to know
the real truth behind it. I think law will take its own course
and all that is necessary to be done will be done."
He said the case should not be closed as a matter
like this "cannot just be just closed".
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will hear tomorrow a plea
for constitution of a special investigating team to probe the
death of 43-year-old Astana.
The apex court has agreed to take up the matter for
hearing on an urgent application moved by Nahar Singh Yadav,
secretary of the Ghaziabad Bar Association, who had filed the
petition for a probe in the scam last year.
In the fresh application, the petitioner claimed that
Asthana had died under mysterious circumstances which could be
due to poisoning.
The accused, who was a treasury officer in the
Ghaziabad court, was arrested in April, 2008 for allegedly
siphoning off the Provident Funds of class III and IV
employees.
During investigation and interrogation of Asthana,
names of 36 judges of various courts had cropped up as alleged
beneficiaries of the scam. CBI is at present investigating the
case under the apex court`s direction.
District Magistrate Kumar said the post mortem on
Astana could not reveal the cause of his death and they
were awaiting the viscera report.
DIG Panda said on October 17 Astana was reading a
newspaper in his barracks when he collpased and was declared
`brought dead` in the hospital.
Astana`s wife, a co-accused in the scam, who was
released on parole for performing the last rites of her
husband, alleged that Astana was murdered.
Bureau Report
