Is Shahid Balwa Dawood’s aide?

Three days after the Supreme Court ordered CBI to probe into the national security angle aspect of the 2G spectrum scam, the Delhi high court will decide on Monday if one of the accused, Shahid Balwa, promoter of DB Realty (Swan Telecom) had links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

Three days after the Supreme Court ordered CBI to probe into the national security angle aspect of the 2G spectrum scam, the Delhi high court will decide on Monday if one of the accused, Shahid Balwa, promoter of DB Realty (Swan Telecom) had links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

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Swan Telecom, now known as Etisalat DB Telecom, was allegedly favoured by prime accused, former telecom minister A Raja, in spectrum allocation.

Balwa was arrested in Mumbai on February 7.

He had moved the Delhi HC two months before it on December 3, 2010 against an official note from the ministry of home affairs (MHA) recommending Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to deny permission to Etisalat to invest money in a Chennai-based firm, citing as one of the four reasons that he shouldn’t be associated with the company either as a director or in other capacity as he has links with the underworld.

MHA claims they have sufficient inputs in this regard from ATS of the Maharashtra government and IB.

Terming the charges as "false and without any basis", Balwa says in his petition that "baseless allegations have been levelled against me without any evidence despite a thorough enquiry".

Justice S Muralidhar will hear Balwa’s lawyers and investigation agencies on Monday.

According to sources, MHA had objected to the proposal of the UAE-based Etisalat to increase its stake in its Indian arm, Etisalat DB, citing the Dubai company’s presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

CBI and IB allege Dawood invested large sums of money in Balwa's firm, which was used by him to finance many of his business deals.

“Balwa made several trips to Dubai, Dawood's hideout, in his private airplane. Investigative agencies are seeking details of these trips from the DGCA”, said the source.