CBI told the Supreme Court that investigations into the Uttar Pradesh Provident Fund scam,in which the names of judges and judicial officers have cropped up,has made a "lot of progress". Attorney General G E Vahanvati,who was responding to the allegation about tardy progress in the investigations into the case,said a "lot of work has been done" in the investigation but disfavoured disclosing the progress. "The investigations of the case has passed the stage of preliminary enquiry (PE) and is in the stage of RC (for registration of a regular case)," Vahanvati informed a three-judge bench which asked him to place before it within four weeks the fresh status report about the probe of the case and posted the matter for hearing in November. The Bench headed by Justice D K Jain also asked Vahanvati to explore the possibility of transfering the trial of the case from a CBI court in Ghaziabad to any designated court in Delhi after ascertaining it from the Delhi High Court as all such special courts across the country are overburdened. CBI has so far filed four status reports about the case to the court. "I am not in favour of filing the chargesheet in a peacemeal manner," Vahanvati said as Ghaziabad Bar Association and Transparency International (India),on whose petitions the CBI probe was ordered,alleged the investigating agency has not filed any FIR or chargesheet against the persons whose names have cropped up in the scam.
