The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 1 January 2018: Happy New Year and welcome to 2018. Are Bombay High Court judges only incompetent, or are they also corrupt? Take a look at the Bhagtani hearings and understand why such a contemptuous question arises about Bombay High Court judges in general. In the course of the proceedings in Anticipatory Bail Application (ABA) no 1725 and 1533 of 2017, Diipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani have successfully exposing the infirmities of the court since mid-August 2017. Hrishikesh Mundargi, Mahesh Jethmalani, the Public Prosecutor and other "officers of the court" are abetting in this criminal activity. Although all of them passed orders that appeared strict, the overall effect of 12 hearings conducted by Justice Revati Mohite Dere, Justice A M Badar, Justice Anuja Prabhudessai and Justice AS Gadkari is to give Bhagtanis interim protection from arrest for nearly four months, without any genuine compliances. TIME is what the Bhagtanis desperately need for d...

Mumbai, 19th December, 2017: Based on Bombay High Court's spoken order yesterday, Bhagtani's victims have cause for optimism again. Although this is not reflected in Justice AS Gadkari's written order , tomorrow's proceedings may confirm this. It appears now that Bhagtani's victims will get their money back, but several questions remain. Will ALL the flat buyers from all the projects -- Riyo, Serenity, Sapphire, Savannah, Krishaang and others -- get their money back? When? And how much? In an ideal world, Judiciary will just hold Diipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani upside down and shake them until all the money falls out of their pockets into the hands of the court receiver.  In an ideal world, Judiciary will then call each victim by name -- regardless of whether he is an intervenor or not -- and refund not just the booking amounts, but also 15, 18 or 24% interest PLUS compensation for legal expenses and mental trauma and loss of real-estate appreciati...

Mumbai, 17th December, 2017: Diipesh Bhagtani's amazing talent for scamming was on full display yesterday at Bandra's Rang Sharda Auditorium, in front of several hundred angry home-buyers determined to get their money back immediately . After repeatedly promising to repay their money with interest for years, and breaking that promise every single time, guess what? He made another promise to them yesterday, and guess what? Happy with his promise to repay them in six months, people ended up giving Bhagtani what he wanted i.e. a No-Objection-Certificate for granting anticipatory bail signed by the lawyers representing over 300 home-buyers in Riyo, Sapphire, Serenity and Savannah projects. People were hypnotized into thinking that Bhagtani had given them a genuine undertaking to repay their money with 15% interest within six months. Many hours after the meeting, people awoke from Dipesh Bhagtani's hypnotic spell realized that Bhagtani had taken what he wanted i.e. the joi...

Mumbai, 14th December, 2017: Kareena Kapoor endorsed Monarch Universal builders of Navi Mumbai builders against whom multiple FIRs for cheating have been filed. Directors Gopal Amar Thakur, Hasmukh Amar Thakur and Roshan Sudhakar Sheth were arrested in September 2017, several months after an FIR was registered in April 2017 for swindling over Rs 4.5 crore from a Dubai business and and his relatives, by falsely promising to deliver 17 flats. Associates Anand Thakur, Ashok Narayani and Sushil Makhija are still absconding. Monarch Universal has swindled over 1500 families in three Navi Mumbai projects namely Monarch Greenscapes at Panvel (880 flats), Monarch Brookfields at Taloja (320 flats), and Monarch Imperial at Kalamboli (310 flats). These 1500 families have found the going extremely tough. Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police has been very slow to register FIRs; home-owners allege that police officers of EOW not only delayed in registering FIR, but also tried dissuadin...

Mumbai, 8th December, 2017: In the context of this weird Bombay High Court order , what are the key takeaways? What lessons are to be learned from this? A key lessons is that each and every Bhagtani home buyer should do two things without delay: (1) File a police complaint with EOW (2) Become an intervenor in Bhagtani's ABA (anticipatory bail application) proceedings. People have a general tendency to wait and watch, rather than take action. They hope to benefit from the actions of others. "Let others file FIRs against Bhagtani, let them spend time and money to become intervenors. When the court orders come, they will benefit us all, right?" WRONG! The latest High Court order shows the dangers of such passivity. It is quite possible that the court order will benefit the complainants and intervenors, and not the others. The way forward is to BECOME INTERVENORS! Bhagtani is relatively quick to settle matters with those who create trouble for him, i.e. co...

Mumbai, 8th December, 2017: Bombay High Court has bowled another bouncer at the home buyers of Bhagtani Riyo -- another surprise in a series of surprises. The written order that was uploaded on the High Court website on 5th December, 2017, says something very different from what the judge said in open court on 30th November. Justice Anuja Prabhudesai's pronouncements in open court were accurately reported in Mumbai Mirror as a COMPLETE RELIEF TO ROUGHLY 1500 HOME-BUYERS of Bhagtani Riyo (Mira Road) and Serenity (Powai). The proceedings were hailed as a pro-people order by all the advocates and intervenors who were present. In contrast, the uploaded order only gives directions FOR PARTIAL RELIEF TO ABOUT 300 INTERVENORS AND COMPLAINANTS. Throughout the week, about 1500 home-buyers of Bhagtani have been extremely happy because they believe that Bombay High Court has at long last given a no-nonsense order! It appears that nobody has actually read the order, because the mood ...

5th December, 2017, Mumbai: Here is an example of how a police complaint should be written, in order to register an FIR against all the people who participated in the Bhagtani scam , and made it possible. Till date, a bout 500 victims of Bhagtani builders have submitted a written complaint to the Economic Offence Wing of Mumbai Police. This seems like a big number until you remember that Diipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani have defrauded over 2000 flat-buyers in half a dozen real estate projects across the city. So, 500 complainants are less than one-fourth of the total number of all the people who have been cheated in Bhagtani Riyo (Mira Road), Bhagtani Sapphire (Dahisar), Bhagtani Serenity and Krishaang (Powai), Bhagtani Savannah (Kanjurmarg) and Bhagtani Executive (Ghatkopar) . Over 75% of the cheated public is still silent, passive and dormant! One hopes that they will come out during 2018, and join the public campaign.  It is crucial to name and shame the employees...