Two contradictory affidavits, filed by Ashutosh Asthana, the main accused in the Ghaziabad Provident Fund (PF) scam, in a space of less than three weeks show the kind of pressure brought to bear upon Asthana, especially from his co-accused.

It was in Asthana’s statement under Section 164 of the CrPC before the court that names of judges were revealed as beneficiaries of the money that he siphoned off from the PF accounts of employees.These affidavits, and the almost one dozen letters sent by Asthana before his death, turn the entire affair murkier. The Indian Express accessed letters sent by him to various authorities in the last one year or so, detailing efforts by many, particularly his co-accused — most of whom were arrested after Asthana named them — to force him to go back on his sworn statement that he made before the Ghaziabad Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate on April 28 last year.

In an affidavit dated August 1, 2008, Asthana told the court about an earlier affidavit and application dated July 18, 2008 that his co-accused had forced him to write in jail after threatening him. Asthana also claimed that the date of the affidavit that he was forced to write was changed by his co-accused to July 18, 2008 though they had forced him to write the affidavit on July 5.

Denying that he had written the July 5 affidavit voluntarily, Asthana requested the court not to take cognizance of the same.However, this affidavit, which Asthana later denied having written on his own, is now part of court record and could turn out to be the single most important defence of the accused.

... contd.