The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 24th October, 2018: Yesterday, an open letter physically signed by 174 victims of Bhagtani builders, was sent to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Home Minister Dr Ranjit Patil, and top police authorities. The letter demanded departmental enquiry against investigating officers who avoided filing chargesheets against companies that duped over 2,500 families of their life savings, and decisive actions to bring back the absconding company directors, namely Mukesh and Laxman Bhagtani. We started the campaign for collecting physical signatures on 6th October, and during the next two weeks, copies of the Open Letter were kept for signatures by nine victims at their residences and offices in Mumbai, from Mira Road to Bandra, and Versova to Vikhroli. The letter sent to Chief Minister, Home Minister, Director General of Police and Police Commissioner. Text of the letter sent is reproduced below: To Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister & Home Minister, Ma...

Dear Friends, As you are aware, we have made a huge difference by writing open letters in the past. In November 2017 , we wrote an  open letter to Chief Justice of Bombay High Court , signed by 55 Riyo victims in Borivali National Park. As a result, Justice Badar was restricted from hearing Bhagtani's ABA matter by an order that said, "Not before any bench of which Justice A.M. Badar is a part". In December 2017, we wrote an open l etter to Maharashtra CM  asking why Bhagtanis were still roaming free and enjoying life. This letter had physical signatures collected from 267 Bhagtani victims of different projects. Shortly afterwards, in January 2018, Diipesh Bhagtani was forced to surrender to EOW. Friends, it is time for us to fire again. This time, the open letter has to be about defective chargesheets that the police have filed for Riyo and Serenity , and other projects also.   Let us send this letter to CM, Minister of State for Home, Director Genera...

Mumbai, 3rd December, 2017: An open Letter signed by 267 Bhagtani victims from various projects, was dispatched by Speedpost yesterday . The letter demanded to know why there was a inaction from the law-enforcement agencies despite Dipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani cheating thousands of home buyers. The letter demanded to know why Bhagtani builders were still roaming free & enjoying life? Why hadn't they been taken into judicial custody and interrogated already? Why weren't their passports impounded yet? This letter, with signatures, was sent to Chief Minister, Home Minister, Police Commissioner, Advocate General and MP Kirit Somaiya. Many victims worked patiently for many days to gather the 267 signatures from all over Mumbai, especially Kavita Doke (Dadar), Karunesh Nishesh (Mira Road), Ashok Palo (Powai), Dr John Paul (Dahisar), Dolly Sheth (Mulund) and Paresh Karia (Goregaon).  Meanwhile, many NRI victims of Bhagtani, such as Mahesh Adhate, Suma Guha and S...

Are judges unduly friendly with big corporates? Last year, Reliance wrote in a letter to former Chief Justice of Bombay High Court KR Vyas: “I am pleased to inform you that your consultancy is further extended for one year i.e. upto April 30, 2015.” The letter reveals that Justice Kshitij Vyas was receiving hefty amounts from Reliance as consultancy. Several other retired Judges who were approached by Dhirubhai’s successors had refused to be on company’s pay roll. Justice Ksh itij R Vyas, formerly Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, was reportedly close to Mukesh Ambani and also the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. On recommendations of Modi, Justice Vyas was appointed as the Chairman of the monitoring authority overseeing fake encounters in Gujarat. However in a setback to Modi, Supreme Court removed Justice Vyas from the chair -- a rare snub by the apex court to a former CJ. Reliance Industries Limited gave an appointment letter to Justice (Retd) Kshitij Vyas....

Justice CR Kumaraswamy excelled himself in the Jayalalitha disproportionate assets case, by “miscalculating” Rs 10.67 cr loans as 24.17 cr on page 852 of the judgment. As a result of this miscalculation, he could then show that her assets were not disporportionate compared to her known sources of income, as her balance loan (after deducting income) was Rs 18.17 cr... whereas actually, the balance  loan is only 4.67 cr. So, although there is no explanation for Amma’s assets worth 13.5 cr, Justice Kumaraswamy takes the help of his arithmetic error to say that there is! His judgment says: Pg. 901 – “The immovable properties were acquired by borrowing huge loan from the Nationalised Banks. It is difficult to infer that the properties were acquired by means of ill-gotten money. Therefore, in my view, confiscation of the properties by the Trial Court is not sustainable in law.“ Pg 909: "The case of the prosecution that Accused No.1 amassed wealth and acquired agricultural lands, si...