New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Jan 4, 2004) issued notices to the Centre, all States, Union Territories, NCT of Delhi and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) seeking a unified CBI probe into the Rs 30,000 crore Telgi stamp paper scam.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice S B Sinha and Justice S H Kapadia sought reply from the respondents on the public interest litigations filed by advocate Ajay Aggarwal and four others, who also sought that CBI probe into the scam be monitored by the apex court.

The petition filed by Aggarwal sought direction to the Centre to devise a method to check recurrence of such scams.

The Bench also directed that the intervention petitions filed by social activist Anna Hazare and former Cabinet Secretary B G Deshmukh be listed along with the PILs.

Further hearing will take place after the Centre, States and other respondents file replies.

Maharashtra and Karnataka submitted that they have no objection in transferring the case to CBI as it was not possible for a particular State to handle the case, which has nation-wide ramifications.