Every day when Shahid Balwa comes to Patiala House from his 10 ft X 15 ft cell in Tihar Jail, he carries with him a sheaf of papers from the 80,000 page CBI chargesheet in the 2G scam. Some portions are highlighted, others underlined. The 39-year-old MD of Dynamix Balwas then discusses details of his case with lawyer Vijay Aggarwal. "We have to murmur because the constable watches us like a hawk," says Aggarwal. Balwa takes a break from the 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. hearing on the CBI chargesheet only to go to the lock-up for 15 minutes and eat his lunch, which consists of snacks purchased with coupons from the Tihar canteen.
Balwa, once in Forbes' list of India's 100 richest people, is in Jail No. 1. He is not the only high-flyer adjusting to life in Tihar's 400-acre prison in Delhi. Its most famous occupant currently is former Union telecommunications minister Andimuthu Raja, 48, who seems to have settled into a groove, reading Tamil books, eating home-cooked food twice a week and watching TV in his cell, which has a WC and tap attached. His former personal secretary R.K. Chandolia and the former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura-all were arrested in February for their alleged involvement in the 2G scam-have recently been shifted to the same ward due to what the jail authorities call "security concerns where they could be exposed to hardened criminals".
The Tihar occupancy chart in Director General of Prisons Neeraj Kumar's room reads 11,832. He's expecting the 11,833rd to be former Indian Olympic Association chief Suresh Kalmadi, 67, who is currently in CBI custody for eight days. "We will have to look for a place for him," says Kumar. Kalmadi could join his former CWG organising committee colleagues Lalit Bhanot and V. K. Verma who are housed in Jail No. 3, the most crowded with 2,011 inmates. He will have to eat lunch at 12 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m., which is rotis or rice as well as dal and a vegetable dish. For breakfast at 8 a.m., he can have tea and two slices of bread and at 5 p.m., it's nimboo pani. If he's especially hungry, he can buy apples, samosa or bhajia from the canteen with coupons worth a maximum of Rs 3,000 a week. For entertainment, he can watch TV in his cell-Tihar has 1,000-odd sets in cells and ward common rooms-or borrow books from the library.
It helps to go in with friends though. Balwa is in the same ward as his brother Asif, who was arrested along with Rajiv Agarwal in March for their alleged involvement in transferring money to DMK's Kalaignar TV channel. All of them share food that comes from home (each prisoner is allowed home-cooked food twice a week and they take turns). Each prisoner is also allowed a visit by the lawyer every day but Balwa and DB Realty MD Vinod Goenka, 52, who Forbes said was worth over $1.18 billion in 2010, prefer to meet them in the courtroom these days.
Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, 37, arrested on April 20 along with Goenka as well as three top officials of the Reliance ADA Group, Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara, is also adapting to life in the slow lane in Jail No. 3. The former Delhi high society staple meets his family between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day in Patiala House Court, and bides his time sleeping on a mattress and fighting mosquitoes.
Suddenly Tihar Jail seems to be on the itinerary of several topnotch CEOs and professionals in the country, which distracts from the conditions of those in the barracks, which house 30 to a room. Tihar's official capacity is 6,250, and it has almost double the inmates, a number likely to increase as CWG and 2G claim more scalps.
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