2G: Shahid Balwa seeks to withdraw statement given in court

Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa today moved a special court seeking its permission to withdraw the answers given by him earlier in response to the court's query in the ongoing trial in 2G spectrum allocation case.

Balwa, who had on May 10 faced court's ire which had said that he "deserved" to be taken in custody for his misconduct, filed a plea before Special CBI Judge O P Saini contending he will "not raise any question of prejudice caused to him on the ground of non-understanding of any questions" asked by the court.

The 2G case accused also requested the court to take on record the written answers afresh.

He said that during recording of his statement, which was deferred by the judge, all the questions were "explained properly" by the court and due to "some inadvertence" it was recorded in some questions that he was not able to understand some of the queries.

"This was a bonafide mistake and the same was neither intentional nor deliberate but only due to an inadvertent error of recording the answers on the court's computer," he said.

CBI, however, sought some time to file its reply after which the court fixed the matter for May 16.

In his plea, Balwa said that he had understood the court's queries and he required no further clarification on it.

The judge had earlier said that Balwa had "embarrassed" him a lot due to his conduct and if he has not understood the question, then why he has given answers of the questions which were asked by the court during recording of his statement.

"It is an exercise to trap the court," the judge had said, adding, "Be ready to go to jail."

Special public prosecutor U U Lalit had told the court that Balwa's contention that he did not understand questions asked by the court under the provisions of the CrPC was only to take advantage in future.