Scuffle, not conspiracy, elbowed Tatas out of 2G race: Balwa

NEW DELHI: Swan Telecom Promoter Shahid Usman Balwa on Tuesday denied hatching a conspiracy to drive Tata out of the race for 2G license and accused Datacom executives of physically pushing Tata's representatives out of the queue at Sanchar Bhawan, telecom ministry headquarters here, on January 10, 2008.
Balwa, who also argued the case before Special CBI Judge OP Saini, said the Datacom executives had a scuffle with representatives of Tata at Sanchar Bhawan here right in the presence of Rajkumar Dhoot, a Rajya Sabha MP and brother of Videocon owner Venugopal Dhoot.
However, some of the prosecution witnesses said it was Venugopal Dhoot, who remained present at the Sanchar Bhawan on that day by allegedly using his brother's ID card of an MP and ensured that Datacom is ahead of Tatas and others in the queue for getting the licenses, Balwa said.
"How can three persons (CBI's witnesses) do the same mistake by saying it was Venugopal Dhoot who was present there? Venugopal was not an MP ...it is a case of fraud as Rajkumar Dhoot was the MP. This is something which needs to be probed," Majeed Memon, Balwa's counsel, said.
"It also establishes the pick-and-choose policy of CBI," he said.
CBI had, in its charge sheet, accused Balwa of conspiring with former Telecom Minister A Raja and other Department of Telecom (DoT) officials in driving Tata out of the race to get the letter of intent (LoI) for lucrative Delhi circle.
Balwa said out of all the accused, he was the only person present at the Sanchar Bhawan during distribution of LOIs when he saw Datacom executives trying to hinder the process and pushing Tata officials back, leading to a scuffle.