2G case: CBI to file reply on Balwa's plea May 22

A court here Friday directed the CBI to file its response by May 22 on Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa's plea for permission to withdraw the answers he gave earlier in response to the court's query in the ongoing trial of 2G spectrum allocation case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which was scheduled to file reply Friday, has requested Special CBI Judge O.P. Saini to grant more time for filing it.

"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," said Balwa, who faced court's ire last week with Saini saying that he "deserved" to be taken in custody for his misconduct.

The court earlier said that Balwa "embarrassed" it a lot due to his conduct. It asked if he did not understand the questions during the recording of his statement, why did he give answers to the questions.

Balwa told the court that he will "not raise any question of prejudice caused to him on the ground of not understanding any questions" asked by the court and requested to take on record the written answers afresh.

On March 27, Balwa was handed over a document with 1,700 questions running into 824 pages by the court. The questions are part of recording of the statement of the accused in the case.

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