The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 29th September, 2017: The hopes of hundreds of victims of Bhagtani builders ill-fated Riyo project in Mira Road today when Justice Revati Mohite Dere of Bombay High Court gave a strict order requiring Dipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani to pay back Rs 22 crore to the victims within 6 months, as a pre-condition for their anticipatory bail. Click here to read today's order in Criminal Anticipatory Bail Application no. 1533 of 2017, wherein there were roughly 175 interveners in four Criminal Applications (CA no. 862, 882, 901 and 910 of 2017).   MAIN POINTS IN TODAY'S ORDER: 1) Counsel for Bhagtani builders was forced to undertake that (a) the builders will deposit Rs.22 crores (as per the judge's directions on 15th Sept ), in 6 equal installments, within six months from today (b) that the first installment will be deposited on or before 12th October, 2017 and (c) the balance 5 installments, thereafter, within one month each and (d) if there is a s...

Mumbai, 27th September, 2017: It is hard to legally prove cheating by Bhagtani builders, even if commonsense proves it. Slippery paperwork and fuzzy oral commitments given by Bhagtanis and their office minions is what makes it hard. Flat-buyers, police, lawyers and even courts lose their sense of direction due to the slipperiness and fuzziness. Everybody is getting diverted by bounced cheques, the terms of allotment letter and cancellation deed, etc. etc. A huge smokescreen of confusion prevails, within which Bhagtani's office continues to fool people and collect crores of rupees even till date. THE BASIC FACTS Your basic contract with Bhagtani is, "I give you money in time, you give me flats in time." This contract was totally broken from the builder's side. Over 2,000 persons paid between Rs 8 lakhs to Rs 80 lakhs for flats in several projects -- Riyo, Sapphire, Savannah, Serenity, Powai B15, Krishaang, etc. Bhagtanis neither delivered the flats, nor gave bac...

25th September, 2017, Mumbai: Good news for Bhagtani Riyo flat-purchasers. Our Adv. Shraddha Dubepatil mentioned our case before Justice Revati Mohite Dere today 11 am and got it preponed to Friday, 29th September. It was earlier scheduled for hearing on 13th October. As you know, Advocate Shraddha Dubepatil has filed intervention application on behalf of 75 flat-buyers. Two other advocates have also filed, bringing the total to over 200 intervenors. The door is still open till Wednesday evening, if more investors wish to join. How to join? Below items are to be hand delivered by the flat allottee (or their Power-Of-Attorney holder) to Adv. Ankur at Office no. 8, Ground Floor, Raj Mahal Building, Near Ambassador Hotel, Veer Nariman Road, Churchgate. Mobile nos. of Adv. Ankur are 9075537627 and 9657071710. ·          Allotment Letter ·          Cancellation Deed if any ·  ...

22/09/2017, Mumbai: Recently, I wrote an article about the need to name & shame Bhagtani's employees in case you are a victim of the Riyo, Savannah, Sapphire and Serenity scams. So let me refresh your memory with the images of some prominent employees in Bhagtanis office -- people with whom many of you interacted, and then you got scammed. Annie Cornel Lobo and Srinivas Erlapelli Upkar Anand, in his old and new avatar RK Kamath Vinay Shukla Khushboo Khanna Besides these, there are Abhishek Varma, Indranil Das, Dilip Ochani, Vijit Ghosh, Sunil Vaswani, Mukesh Tiwari, Sagar Malwade, Uttkarsh Gandhi, Yogita Sakpal, and Esther, and several others. Indranil Das and Others Sagar Malwade and others Am I being petty-minded, vengeful or vexatious? Would it be morally wrong to name them in your FIR? The emphatic answer is, NO. So, why am I asking you to name these people while registering your FIR with Santacruz police station? THE REASO...

 22/09/2017, Mumbai: There’s good news and bad news for Bhagtani Riyo flat-purchasers. First the bad news: Our hearing in Bombay HC did not happen today as the judge -- Justice Revati Mohite Dere -- was absent today and is scheduled to resume only on Monday. So, our matter (anticipatory bail application no. 1533 of 2017 held yesterday evening for extension of pre-arrest bail granted to Dipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani) was rescheduled for hearing on 13 th October as per High Court causelist. Advocate Shraddha Dubepatil, who has filed her intervention application on behalf of 75 flat-buyers, will try to have it heard on Tuesday by mentioning the case before the judge on Monday morning. Now the good news: This unexpected delay may give many other flat-buyers of Riyo to file their intervention application. People who could not include their names in the application which Adv. Shraddha filed this week, can now file their intervention with Adv. Ankur Pahade (Mobile no...

20th September, 2017, Mumbai: During the past 3-4 days, the victims of Bhagtani builders from various projects such as (Savannah, Sapphire, Serenity and Riyo) have started going in groups to Santacruz Police Station and giving their statements. Hopefully, we will see more FIRs being registered against the Dipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani for cheating. It may not be long before they are arrested and interrogated by police. SOME QUESTIONS ARISE: 1) Will investors get back their money? Will the courts and/or other authorities recover the money from wherever the Bhagtanis have siphoned it off? Will they start recovery proceedings and get the money back within a reasonable timeframe, and return it pro-rata to investors? One hopes so; it is necessary for all of us to work towards that objective. If our system fails to deliver some kind of justice and payback, a couple of hundred NRIs who invested in Bhagtani projects may lose faith in the Indian system, and may spread the word t...

Mumbai, 16 th September, 2017: If you are a flat-buyer looking for a new home for your family, or an property investor looking for good returns, be warned; Lodha Fiorenza is a trap. If you sign any papers or swipe your credit card at the Lodha Fiorenza sales office, you will be liable to forfeit lakhs of rupees very quickly, or make a regrettable investment from which there are only loss-making exits. The branding message of “interiors by Jade Jagger for Yoo” is a giant façade that hides an ugly mess of unverifiable claims, unfair dealings and badly planned towers that will prove extremely costly to maintain in the long run.  The advertising claims portray a stylish premium property, which is far from the ground reality. The designer interiors are flashy, mediocre and gimmicky. Half the flats have a view of the greenery of Aarey Colony, Goregaon, but this is marred by the continuous bass droning of day-and-night traffic on the Western Express Highway that permeates th...