The death of Ashutosh Asthana, a key accused in the Ghaziabad Provident Fund scam, in an accident comes as yet another blow in a case that has been crawling since it first broke nearly two years ago.

The trial in the case is yet to begin, or the chargesheet filed. Till September 9, the CBI had filed four status reports, and claimed to have concluded the preliminary investigation. Attorney General G E Vahanvati had told the apex court on the last date of hearing that the agency was awaiting the report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory that is examining 21,000 documents and 6,000 specimen signatures.

It was Asthana who spilled the beans in the Rs 7-crore scam in the Ghaziabad district courts, allegedly involving 34 judges, including a sitting Supreme Court judge and 11 others from the Allahabad and Uttarakhand high courts. He was the only person who recorded his statement before a magistrate and detailed the manner in which the money was siphoned off. He also named the judicial officers he delivered expensive gifts to.

Arrested in April 2008, Asthana died on Saturday under mysterious circumstances.

The accusations regarding the swindling of money for seven years, from 2001 to 2008, first came to the fore in January 2008 after hordes of court employees lodged anonymous complaints with the Ghaziabad district judge. Taking cognizance of the complaints, the judge forwarded the letters to the Allahabad High Court, which subsequently deputed a 16-member team, headed by Special Judge Rama Jain as the vigilance officer, to probe the matter.

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