The CBI is probing the involvement in the 2G scam of the DB Group’s chairman and managing director, Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa, respectively.
The Dynamix Balwas group (DB Group), which has emerged as one of the front companies in the 2G Spectrum scam, has come under a sharper scrutiny. The CBI is probing the involvement in the 2G scam of the DB Group’s chairman and managing director, Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa, respectively.
Probe sources said there is irrefutable evidence of the duo having played a major role in the scandal and receiving kickbacks.
Vinod Goenka and Shahid Usman Balwa co-founded the DB Group ten years ago. Incidentally, both also figure in the Forbes magazine’s Richest Indian’s list released in 2010. Goenka with his $ 1.18 billion is ranked 54, while Balwa with $1.06 billion is ranked 66.
Goenka and Balwa are both partners in DB Realty and Etisalat DB Telecom (formerly Swan Telecom).
The duo are reportedly close to a powerful Maharashtra politician who is said to have introduced them, in 2004, to 2G scam kingpin, A Raja. In 2004, when the duo met Raja for the first time, the DMK leader was holding the portfolio of environment and forests.
The DB group required an environmental clearance for a project in the Coastal Regulation Zone. Raja reportedly obliged and since then both Goenka and Balwa became his trusted aides.
Balwa was questioned twice last year by the CBI. Sources said Goenka, a highly influential and politically connected businessman who unsuccessfully tried getting a Rajya Sabha nomination from Jharkhand with the support of BJP and JMM, is the next in line.
DB group, through Tiger Trustees, holds over 90% stake in Swan Telecom, which bagged licences for operating in 13 circles by paying just Rs 1,537 crore. Within months, it sold 45% of its shares to Etisalat, the UAE telecom giant, for US $900 million (approximately Rs 4,500 crore).
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