The Supreme Court today sought an explanation from the District Judge of Ghaziabad Vishnu Chandra Gupta for his alleged interference in the course of justice in the Uttar Pradesh provident fund scam case in which names of judicial officers including an apex court judge (since retired) have cropped up.

A Bench comprising Justices D K Jain, V S Sirpurkar and G S Singhvi issued notice to Gupta seeking his response within four weeks.

CBI filed an affidavit through Attorney General G E Vahanvati alleging that Gupta had on July 26 asked the district government counsel (DGC) of the local police to take back the CDs relating to the scam from the agency.

However, when the CBI counsel protested, the judge orally told the DGC to plead themselves in the case as they have filed the main chargesheet in the matter and conduct the trial along with the investigating agency, the affidavit said.

The apex court also issued notices to 70 accused on the plea of CBI seeking sifting of the trial of the case from a special CBI court in Ghaziabad to anywhere, preferably to the national capital.

The chargesheet filed by the CBI had also named six district judges out of which three of them were elevated to the Allahabad High Court.

The apex court had on July 28 stayed the proceedings in the PF scam before a special CBI court after the agency had submitted that some "extremely disturbing" incidents warranted shifting of the case outside the state.

The CBI, which has been probing the case, had submitted a report before the apex court saying that there were "no evidence" against 17 judges and there was lack of sufficient evidence to prosecute the remaining 24 judicial officers in the case.

However, AG had said that the report about the 24 judges against whom there is no sufficient prosecutable evidence was sent to Chief Justice S H Kapadia and the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court for taking administrative action for their alleged misconduct.

The AG, who had pressed for immediate shifting of the case outside Uttar Pradesh, said this was necessary as there have been "extremely disturbing incidents in the Ghaziabad Court".

He had alleged that the District Judge, under whose jurisdiction the CBI judge works, has been orally asking the state police to involve themselves in the case which has been handed over to the CBI.

The Judge had sought case diary from the Uttar Pradesh Police which had initially investigated the scam.

Further, the AG had said the proceedings of the case has to be kept away from the court in Uttar Pradesh as six of the judicial officers whose name have cropped up in the scam have been elevated as judges of High Courts.

The NGO, Transparency International (India), and the Ghaziabad Advocates' Association had approached the apex court seeking independent probe into the Provident Fund scam in which the names of judicial officers and judges including one from the Supreme Court had cropped up.

The AG had said that the CBI had till March examined 220 witnesses including judicial officers and the agency was in the process of sifting through 30,000 specimen signatures of the accused to establish the case and had sought time to complete the probe.

The prime accused in the multi-crore scam Ashutosh Asthana, 43, had died under mysterious circumstances on October 17, 2009, at Dasna district jail in Ghaziabad where he was lodged in connection with the case.

The accused, who was a treasury officer at 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 judges of various courts had cropped up as alleged beneficiaries of the scam believed to be to the tune of Rs 20 crore.

CBI is presently investigating the case under the apex court's direction.

Initially the scam was investigated by the Uttar Pradesh Police.