Under the shadow of demand for resignation of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and a supreme court-monitored CBI probe, the court will hear on Thursday a plea by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and three whistle-blowers into the Vyapam scam.

An apex court bench headed by chief justice HL Dattu on Tuesday said these petitions would be taken up on July 9 along with two others seeking removal of Madhya Pradesh governor Ram Naresh Yadav so that he could be prosecuted for his alleged involvement in the scam.

Singh and the three whistle-blowers - Ashish Chaturvedi, Anand Rai and Prashant Pandey - while demanding for a SC-monitored CBI probe said they have no faith in the state Special Task Force on the scam.

The multi-crore scam became murkier on Monday with a mysterious third death linked to the scandal but the centre ruled out a CBI probe despite allegations of witnesses being deliberately eliminated.

At least 40 people including witnesses, accused and beneficiaries connected to the racket have been found dead since 2013, when the arrest of 20 people in Indore blew the lid off the massive scam that has seen over 2,000 arrests including top bureaucrats and middlemen.

Meanwhile, as the opposition continues to demand prime minister Narendra Modi's statement on the Vyapam scam, union law minister Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday said that the PM need not answer on silly issues.

While speaking to news agency Gowda said that concerned ministers and party president have answered on the Vyapam scam and asking for PM's reply on each silly issue in unfair.