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2G: witness gives account of raid at Balwa's office
A witness in the 2G spectrum scam case today gave a detailed account to a Delhi court about the 11-hours raid conducted by CBI at D B Reality Promoter Shahid Balwa's office in Mumbai.
A witness in the 2G spectrum scam case today gave a detailed account to a Delhi court about the 11-hours raid conducted by CBI at D B Reality Promoter Shahid Balwa's office in Mumbai from where the agency had seized over 14,000 papers while the staff there was "perplexed" and "tired".
29-year-old Kailash Taparia, Relationship Manager at State Bank of India, told the court the raid at D B House, Goregaon (East) in Mumbai, which lasted from 3:15 pm of October 18, 2009, to 2:15 am the next day, was his only experience of accompanying CBI in a search to verify seizure of the documents.
"When we reached D B House, some crowd was there but when Shayam Prakash (investigating officer) introduced himself as a CBI officer, the crowd was removed and the CBI team was let in," he told the court.
Taparia said Balwa's secretary told the team that he was not in India at that time and she informed another official of D B Reality about the arrival of CBI in the office.
Taparia said he had "some general idea" about the 2G scam at that time but he knew that he was going to be a witness in the case.
He told the court that the CBI officers searched four rooms in the office and seized documents running into 14,000 to 15,000 pages while he and other witnesses remained seated at the reception and later in the conferrence room.
"The office staff of the D B House was tired and little perplexed as the CBI team had reached their office," Taparia told the court.
He said while the CBI officers were searching the office, the investigating officer had to speak to other D B Reality officials and the company's advocates who had reached the office by then.
"Whenever the search was complete in a particular room, papers thereof would be brought in the conference room and I would put my signature thereon," Taparia said.
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