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Mr Shahid Usman Balwa, an accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam and the then Director of Swan Telecom, was on Friday remanded to judicial custody till March 3 by a Delhi court and sent to Tihar Jail here.
The Special CBI Judge, Mr O. P. Saini, noted the CBI's submission that the investigation was not yet complete and remanded Mr Balwa to judicial custody till March 3. The CBI had alleged that Swan Telecom was one of the companies favoured by Mr Raja in the process of granting 2G licences and allocation of spectrum in 2007-08.
Meanwhile, Mr Balwa moved three applications before the court submitting that he may be allowed home-cooked food, medicines as well as special orthopaedic mattress and pillow as he is suffering from back pain. He also filed a medical certificate to support his plea. Acting on the applications, the court asked the Jail Superintendent to consider Mr Balwa's plea according to the prison rules.
Mr Balwa was arrested in Mumbai on February 8, brought to Delhi on a transit remand and produced before the court on February 10. The court then remanded Mr Balwas to CBI custody till February 14 and further till Friday.
On Friday, the CBI counsel Mr Akhilesh said Mr Balwa was not any more needed for custodial interrogation, but added that he is required to be kept in judicial custody as otherwise, there was a likelihood that he may tamper with documents and win over/threaten witnesses.
Missing documents
Significantly, the CBI said “The documents submitted by a telecom company to the Department of Telecommunications for allocation of spectrum, on the basis of which their priority was to be determined, could not be yet traced/recovered. The same (documents) are essentially required to (help the probe) reach at a logical conclusion and to complete the chain of events.”
The CBI said Mr Balwa was confronted with other witnesses and suspects as well as documents regarding the case. However, he was “evasive in answering the questions and hiding the real facts, in the light of facts and circumstances of the case regarding criminal conspiracy, trail of money, quid-pro-quo etc,” the CBI said in its remand application.
Mr Balwa's counsel Mr Vijay Aggarwal had said earlier that Mr Balwa was engaged in bona fide commercial transactions and had not violated any law.
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