Our Correspondence with Lodha about World Towers Height Article & Video

Mumbai, 11th June, 2019: Below, I reproduce our complete correspondence with Lodha regarding this article (http://bit.ly/Lodha-World-Towers-Height-Article) and this video (https://youtu.be/ijgyJuLbe_E) about the unauthorized height of World Towers, Upper Worli, Lower Parel, Mumbai. I am putting these facts before the public domain at great personal risk. Because of the content that I am making public today, there is every possibility of my being falsely prosecuted, not only for defamation but also for criminal offenses like blackmail and extortion. Indeed, a well-orchestrated publicity campaign has been going on to discredit my sources and impute malafide motives to them, and to prosecute them.

Our correspondence leading upto today's publication is as below:

1) Our emailed request for rebuttal

From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 8:23 PM
Subject: Draft Article / Press Release on Lodha World Towers for your rebuttal / rejoinder

To: <abhishek.lodha@lodhagroup.com>, <connect@mangalprabhatlodha.com>, <surendran.nair@lodhagroup.com>, <shaishav.dharia@lodhagroup.com>, <jasmine.bilimoria@lodhagroup.com>, <deepak.chitnis@lodhagroup.com>, <gopal.menghani@lodhagroup.com>, <jayant.mehrotra@lodhagroup.com>, <piyush.vora@lodhagroup.com>, <prashant.bindal@lodhagroup.com>, <rajesh.tulsiani@lodhagroup.com>, <shaleen.madan@lodhagroup.com>, Srichand Mandhyan <srichand.mandhyan@lodhagroup.com>, <tikam.jain@lodhagroup.com>, <viral.oza@lodhagroup.com>, <sanjyot.rangnekar@lodhagroup.com>, <sumit.kumar@lodhagroup.com>

Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Dear Sir/Madam,

Your pointwise and reasoned rejoinder / rebuttal is solicited for the below draft Press Release / Blog article about the issues at Lodha World Towers. Kindly revert with rejoinder before 5 pm Monday, 10th June 2019, as this article is scheduled to be published at 6 pm the same day.

I may be contacted on my below mobile number for clarifications if required.

My previous press releases and articles on various topics, including Lodha Group, may be read on my blog: https://thebravepedestrian.blogspot.in/

Yours sincerely,
Krishnaraj Rao
98215 88114 / 81694 71229
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2) Our emailed record of two meetings that followed:

From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jun 8, 2019 at 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: Draft Article / Press Release on Lodha World Towers for your rebuttal / rejoinder

To: <abhishek.lodha@lodhagroup.com>, <connect@mangalprabhatlodha.com>, <surendran.nair@lodhagroup.com>, <shaishav.dharia@lodhagroup.com>, <jasmine.bilimoria@lodhagroup.com>, <deepak.chitnis@lodhagroup.com>, <gopal.menghani@lodhagroup.com>, <jayant.mehrotra@lodhagroup.com>, <piyush.vora@lodhagroup.com>, <prashant.bindal@lodhagroup.com>, <shaleen.madan@lodhagroup.com>, Srichand Mandhyan <srichand.mandhyan@lodhagroup.com>, <tikam.jain@lodhagroup.com>, <viral.oza@lodhagroup.com>, <sanjyot.rangnekar@lodhagroup.com>, <sumit.kumar@lodhagroup.com>

Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>, XXXXXX <XXXXXX@gmail.com>

Dear Sirs,

This is to place on record that two lengthy meetings have been held with me by Mr. Rajendra Lodha and Mr. XXXXX (an activist friend whom I have known for a decade, and who is widely known for his expertise in housing matters) at their request on 5th June and 7th June, 2019. The agenda was, on the face of it, to discuss terms of civil consent etc. to close the ongoing defamation suit and contempt of court proceedings against me. Mr. Rajendra Lodha was introduced to me as being the person who handles land dealings and legal matters, and therefore being hands-on in the cases against me.

In response to my query as to why we are not involving our lawyers in such discussions, and holding our meetings at the High Court premises, as is the practice, the explanation given was that we should first informally finalize the terms of consent between us, and then such meetings with lawyers would follow. In the light of the suspicious and casual proceedings of the last two meetings, where only generalities were exchanged for the most part, I find such an explanation unsatisfactory. Consent terms and closure of the case were barely discussed at either of these meetings, and whatever was discussed was done in a roundabout manner, full of hints couched in generalities, and not a straightforward way.

It is significant that these meetings were called leading up to the release of article and video about World Towers, scheduled on Monday, 10th June. Till date, I have received no rebuttal whatsoever for the said article, which is based wholly on a comparison of official documents (of Airport Authority of India, MCGM, Fire Brigade, Certifying Architects, Bombay High Court, etc), with the ground realities at Lodha World Tower project.

We have sought rebuttals from you as our due diligence, to eliminate all possibility of any such documents being false, outdated or otherwise not authentic. As the article involves many matters of great public interest -- particularly gravely endangering public safety by raising towers to heights unauthorized by AAI, which would arguably interfere with civil aviation. We have raised such matters very prominently, and these issues, and accompanying matters, would require many articles and videos to fully unpack before the public. Hence we felt it would be prudent to give you an opportunity to give a reasoned rebuttal at the outset of our taking up this issue.

I gave you an opportunity to repudiate the substance of the article based on reasoning, building permissions and other documents.

But instead of a rebuttal, what I have received are hints that I should accept some substantial amount and "step out of the way" in all matters concerning Lodha projects and let "everyone else" fend for themselves. I understand "everyone else" to mean all the people whom I have written articles and made videos about, and by "step out of the way", I understand deleting my articles and videos from the public domain, and falling silent. At our meeting of 5th June, I made it repeatedly and amply clear that such conduct would be unbecoming of me, and I would not be doing so under any circumstances, 

In yesterday's meeting i.e. 7th June, I was casually given a thick dossier of papers concerning Ruchi Soya, Rosmerta and their sister concerns, containing press clippings, books of accounts, readymade articles and powerpoint presentations about their alleged wrongdoings etc etc. Presumably, these dossiers of information have been compiled by Lodha against its own high-profile customers, and the articles and powerpoint presentations presented therein have been commissioned by Lodha.

The companies and persons mentioned in this dossier appear to be aggrieved flat-purchasers of Lodha World One, who are my primary source of the official documents, procured under Right To Information. These aggrieved flat-owners have already filed complaints before RERA on the basis of such documents, and as such, these are public documents in public domain.

Mr Rajendra Lodha casually stated that this was sent by Mr Mangal Prabhat Lodha himself to me. I fail to see how such a dossier has any relevance or utility in the matters at hand. One can only speculate about their intention in giving me such a dossier. Was it a signal to my sources, being conveyed through me? Was the dossier an indirect threat, to coerce them to take possession of their units without demur? What was stated to me was the hint that my sources were themselves tainted, and therefore, I must cease to voice their concerns and take up their cause. It was clearly an effort to alienate me.

Clearly, the two meetings were full of efforts to coerce/compromise me so that I do not publish the article and video against World Towers Project, to offer me temptations and alienate me from my sources, rather than to discuss legitimate terms for civil consent and/or give documents/verbal explanations about the impending World Towers article/press release/video.

While I derived comfort from the involvement of my close and trusted friend XXXXXXi, and indeed, attended the meetings because I was invited by him to do so, I am very much disturbed by the intent and implications of such meetings.

I strongly urge you to keep the two things separate:

(a) Rebuttal of the impending World Towers article/video should be on its merits only -- based on documents and facts. Please desist from any further attempts to convince me in any other ways,

(b) Any meetings on civil consent etc, if at all desired, should happen in the presence of advising lawyers, on the High Court premises, under strictly official circumstances, after emailing a draft of proposed terms and conditions in advance.

Yours sincerely,
Krishnaraj Rao
Journalist & Activist

-----------------------------

3) Lodha's first response:

From: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Date: Sat 8 Jun, 2019, 19:11
Subject: Fwd: FW: Draft Article / Press Release on Lodha World Towers for your rebuttal / rejoinder
To: <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>

Dear Mr. Rao,

You had asked us to provide a response to your email dated 4th June 2019 by 5 pm on 10th June 2019 which we will be providing.

On the contents of your email below, we are unaware of the same. We will ascertain the detail and revert thereafter.

Sincerely,                                                                                  
Corporate Communication Team
------------------------------------------------

4) Response from Mr XXXX (a common friend):

From: XXXXX <XXXXX@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jun 9, 2019 at 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: Draft Article / Press Release on Lodha World Towers for your rebuttal / rejoinder
To: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Cc: <abhishek.lodha@lodhagroup.com>, <connect@mangalprabhatlodha.com>, <surendran.nair@lodhagroup.com>, <shaishav.dharia@lodhagroup.com>, <jasmine.bilimoria@lodhagroup.com>, <deepak.chitnis@lodhagroup.com>, Gopal Menghani <gopal.menghani@lodhagroup.com>, <jayant.mehrotra@lodhagroup.com>, <piyush.vora@lodhagroup.com>, <prashant.bindal@lodhagroup.com>, <shaleen.madan@lodhagroup.com>, Srichand Mandhyan <srichand.mandhyan@lodhagroup.com>, <tikam.jain@lodhagroup.com>, <viral.oza@lodhagroup.com>, <sanjyot.rangnekar@lodhagroup.com>, <sumit.kumar@lodhagroup.com>, subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Hi Krish

This is to put on records

First of all, I would like to clarify that the meeting with Rajednra Lodha was my idea and my initiative, I had called Mr. Rajendra Lodha for the meeting, Mr. Rajemdra Lodha is my friend like how you are my friend, we had solved the issue of XXXX conveyance deed which Mr. Rajendra Lodha had done within one month although in consent terms the time sought to for conveyance was six months, the meeting was called by me to explore the possibilities to end the ongoing court proceedings against each other, break the ice to work out the solution, the meeting was never linked to the release of your article.

Regards
XXXXX
----------------------------

5) Lodha's actual rebuttal no. 1:

From: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 4:50 PM
Subject: Fwd: FW: Draft Article / Press Release on Lodha World Towers for your rebuttal / rejoinder
To: <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>

Dear Mr. Rao,

You had asked us to provide a response to your email dated 4th June 2019 by 5 pm on 10th June 2019

Please find attached the same.

Sincerely,                                                                                  
Corporate Communication Team
---------------------------------------------

Contents of Lodha's attached Word Document (REBUTTAL no. 1):

10th June,2019

To
Mr. Krishnaraj Rao
501, A Wing, Raheja Green
Raheja Estate, Kulupwadi,
Borivali East
Mumbai 400066.

Sir,
1. We refer to your email of 4th June, 2019 (“Your Email”) seeking our response to the draft
of the Press Release (“Draft Press Release”) and accompanying video (“the said Video”
for short) that you intend to issue/publish on 10th June, 2019 at 6 p.m. For the sake of
brevity, the Draft Press Release and the said Video are collectively referred to as “the
Misleading Material”.

2. Without prejudice to any of our contentions below (para 4 onwards), we believe that you
have written the draft press release without having access to the full and true information.
The information available with you is limited and selectively produced to support a
particular view point. Since you seem to claim that you are a bonafide journalist and would
like to write after knowing the facts, we are willing to provide you with the opportunity to
inspect all the relevant documents/correspondence. This will ensure that you write your
article with full knowledge of the facts. In the event that you would like to take this
necessary step for journalistic integrity, please let us know and we will arrange a mutually
suitable time for the same with prior notice of 2 working days.

3. In the event that you chose not to conduct the inspection, please treat the contents
below (para 4 onwards) as our response and also incorporate into your press release
that this inspection has been offered to you and you have chosen not to do the same.
The Misleading Material, if released/published, which are per se and grossly defamatory
will cause grave harm and prejudice to us. It would, therefore, be in fitness of things that
you would forthwith refrain from publishing any of the offending material and/or contents
therein in any form, manner or through any medium. In the event you proceed to
issue/publish theMisleadingMaterial, then without prejudice to what is set out herein
and reserving our position, you are required to publish along with the same, with
equal prominence, the contents of this response thereto fully and verbatim. In the
event that, while publishing the Misleading Material, you choose to edit our response
or do not provide it equal prominence compared to the rest of your story, it will be
evident that you are acting with a bias with an intent to defame us and, as set out
below, also aid and abet the persons mentioned below in commission of offence of
extortion and you will be liable for all consequential action thereto.

4. Prior to responding to your Misleading Material, we ask that you clarify the following to
us (and also prominently state these questions and disclose your responses thereto
whenever you choose to publish the Misleading Material):
a. Howmany times have youmet withDelhi developer,Vikash Bhagchandka (‘VB’),
or his accomplices/representatives?
b. What is your commercial arrangement with VB or related parties? How much
money has already been received by you from VB or related parties? How much
will you receive in future if their attempts against us are successful?
c. In the last 12 months, how much money has been received by you and from which
parties, towards your activist and/or journalistic activities?
d. Any other history, motivations or material that you believe are necessary for you
to reveal to the readers/audience in order for them to form a reasonable assessment
of the drivers of your actions / behaviour?

5. In relation to the Misleading Material, we categorically state that your allegations in
relation to the height of the World Towers are false and deliberately misleading. We
state that the buildings at our World Towers development have been constructed as
per the approved plans and heights and any allegations to the contrary are false,
baseless and defamatory. Suffice it to say, the construction of the Towers has been as
per the permissions granted by the various authorities starting from 2010 onwards
and the said permission continued to be applicable and valid during the relevant
period(s). The question of any of the floors of any of the Towers being demolished,
therefore, does not arise. In fact, one of the towers against which you have raised
allegations was completed and occupied almost 3 years ago – you appear to have just
woken up to the story now because in April/May 2019, Your Clients (defined below)
were unable to succeed in their claims before RERA. The basis of the ‘public’ interest
that you claim to represent is clear and needs no further elaboration.

6. Your entire story and Misleading Material is based on selective documents that you have
obtained froma group of 5 Delhi-based people/entities who are engaged in attempt to extort
monies from us led by Delhi developer, Vikash Bhagchandka (‘VB’) (CEO of M2K
Developers) and against whom extortion proceedings are underway. You have neither
conducted any independent verification of facts and nor have you obtained any information
or views directly from any authority. You have also conveniently ignored the fact that all
these documents were presented before RERA which has in its Order of 30 April 2019 not
found any merit in their contentions. We further state that the documents are deliberately
incompletely and selectively chosen to try to create an untrue picture.

7. Having failed to obtain any of the relief sought before the RERA, VB and his accomplices
are working with you to spread falsehood about our development. In addition to VB, you
are working with well-known Delhi based cartel of Ruchi Soya group (declared bankrupt,
loss of over Rs.5000 crores to banks and creditors), Rosmerata group (facing many
allegations of fraud and Hawala), Samsung Overseas Limited and Ashok Minda
(collectively “Your Clients”) to carry out the campaign of publishing the Misleading
Material (which contains false, misleading and baseless allegation) with an intent to cause
harm and damage to us and/or our Project’s reputation – and we reserve our position in that
regard.

8. You do not appear to have seen the entire documentation, permissions and correspondence
between us and the concerned authorities. You have reached your conclusions on the basis
of selective documents, chosen by VB and/or yourself. The allegations in the Misleading
Material are clearly baseless, false, motivated and an attempt to bring disrepute to us and
our Project as also aid and abet the intention of Your Clients to wrongly extort moneys
from us. Your false and motivated allegations are nothing but an attempt at using pure
falsehood to achieve goals of Your Clients which have otherwise failed.

9. We note that you have apparently and with deliberate intent not disclosed in the Misleading
Material the fact that your clients have been resorting to criminal activities through Vikash
Bhagchandka (ofManvi Computech) of unlawfully extorting from us monies, which they
are otherwise not entitled to. You have also not disclosed in the Misleading Material that
Mr. Bhagchandka is the President of M2K Developers, a land aggregator and
developer operates in North India and that several cases have been filed by
customers of and against M2K before RERA of various States. You have not
disclosed that, as per newspaper reports, a group company of your client Rosemerta viz.
Rosemerta HSRP Ventures Private Limited has been alleged to be involved in number plate
scam to the tune of Rs.400 crores. The news reports also state that Rosemerta HSRP
Ventures Limited was accused of illegalities of not only in execution of the projects but
also overcharging and using substandard material. Another newspaper report indicates that
Rosemerta Technologies Limited has been alleged by the Government of Karnataka to
have committed several illegalities and irregularities in the matter of implementation of
High Security Registration Plants. It is stated that Mr. Vivek Nagpal, who is stated to
control Rosemerta Technologies Limited, has been named as an accused in the FIR
registered by the CBI and has been debarred by SEBI in 2007 to access capital markets for
a period of 5 years. You have also not disclosed that the newspaper reports state that
Rosemerta Technologies Limited has been alleged to have submitted fake bank guarantee
worth Rs.5 Cores to the Government of Maharashtra for obtaining the contract for issuing
smart RC Books and for which FIR has been lodged with Kherwadi Police Station.
Similarly, you have not disclosed that your client Ruchi Green is an associates/Group
Company of Ruchi Soya Industries Limited. It need not be reiterated that Ruchi Soya
Industries has been declared to be a wilful defaulter of over Rs.10000 crores and an
Insolvency Resolution Professional has been appointed.

10. Apart from the aforesaid, you have not disclosed that your clients Manvi Computech,
AshokMinda and Samsung Overseas Limited filed complaints against us before the RERA
in which several allegations were made for violations of provisions of RERA and other
statues. In the said Complaints your said clients sought refund of the entire amounts paid
by them along with interest towards the units in World One agreed to be purchased by
them. The claim for refund of the amount made by your clients has been categorically
rejected by the Hon’ble MAHARERA, which has directed them to take possession after
making payment of balance amounts and directed us to pay them interest for the period of
about one year (against which we have lodged our appeal).

11. The fact that the Misleading Material does not contain the aforesaid facts and background
of Your Clients and the fact that you get paid for publishing the Misleading Material is an
indication that your entire campaign of publishing the Misleading Material is not only
biased but clearly motivated, lacking in bonafides and an attempt to further aid and abet
Your Clients in their criminal intent of extorting monies from us. It is also an attempt to
create wanton sensation, when there is none. It is also evident that the contents of the
Misleading Material are on the basis of the information that has been provided to you by
Your Clients, which information is either false, not true and/or misleading.

Thanks and Regards,
(Corporate Communications)

-------------------------------------

6) My first response to INVITATION TO TAKE INSPECTION of documents, highlighted in Rebuttal:

From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 1:02 AM
Subject: My response to your rebuttal & invitation to inspect your documents
To: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Dear Corporate Communications Team,

Thank you for your response. I note that your reply alleges malafide motives, nexus, etc. on my part, but fails to rebut my draft press release on merits.

You assert that I had limited access to documents of permissions, etc; I wholeheartedly agree with your assertion. I am but a journalist, and I do not claim to be infallible in terms of having all the facts and all the documents of the matter. I only claim to be open to reason.. I am within my bounds as an investigative journalist to draw certain reasonable conclusions, based on the facts and documents that are made available to me, and to make those conclusions public.

The only thing that is relevant to me as a journalist is that I have been given some information and documents that appear to be quite reliable and genuine, and some matters of concern have been pointed out to me which appear to be factual and in public interest. It is not my job as a journalist to sit in judgement over the motives of my sources. My duty does not require me to avoid a subject simply on account of my sources' real or imagined personal motives.

That said, my duty requires me to make efforts to be objective. I requested your rebuttal precisely in order to hear your side of the story. If there are gaps in my documents, then I would like to know from you specifically what those gaps are. If I have drawn erroneous conclusions, then I would like to know specifically from you what those errors are.

I am ready and willing to take inspection of your documents tomorrow (Tuesday June 11) anytime after 2 pm. I would not like to come to your office, however, as I have some concerns about my personal safety. Therefore, I urge your team to meet me at a neutral venue, with your necessary documents, and to discuss with me.

Please be prepared to provide me with hard copies or scans of key documents if needed. Inspection of documents without copies would be of no practical use, and would fail to provide a proper rebuttal to the story, which relies heavily on key documents.

In our discussion, we will critically examine each paragraph and each point of my draft article. Please come with 2-3 printouts of my draft, on which we will note corrections. I hope that is comfortable to you.

Kindly call me after 11 am to coordinate the time and venue  of our meeting tomorrow. I look forward to meeting you and understanding your point of view.

Yours sincerely,
Krishnaraj Rao
9821588114 and 8169471229

 ------------------------------------------

7) My further response to INVITATION TO TAKE INSPECTION

From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: My response to your rebuttal & invitation to inspect your documents

To: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Dear Corporate Communications Team & others,

Further to my earlier email, I wish to add that your condition of 2 days prior notice for inspection is not acceptable, in the light of the fact that you deliberately delayed sending the rebuttal in order to bide time.

Kindly arrange to give me inspection of documents before 5 pm today, failing which I shall be constrained to publish the article and video at 6 pm today.

Rest assured that in such an event, your rebuttal will be simultaneously published in its entirety, with equal prominence and without any edits.

I await your early response. Please call me for inspection of documents today before 5 pm.

Yours Sincerely
Krishnaraj Rao

--------------------------------------

8) Lodha's reply

From: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: My response to your rebuttal & invitation to inspect your documents
To: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Dear Mr. Rao,

We are not surprised by your response. It reconfirms that you are acting in concert with Vikash Bhagchandka and his accomplices (‘Your Clients’) and furthering their attempts at illegally extorting monies from us. You have admitted that  you have partial information on which you have based the Misleading Material  but you are unwilling to take inspection of the full set of documents which has been offered in 2 days. You have also not carried out any independent verification/diligence to ascertain the veracity of the Misleading Material.  Your actions speak for themselves and lack in credibility and bonafides.

You have asked us to provide a rebuttal to your draft article by 5 pm on Monday, 10th June which was duly provided. There is, therefore, no question of dilly dallying on our part. Nevertheless, for your ease, the said response (with changes in track mode reflecting the correspondence since yesterday) is attached for your convenience.

We once again reiterate that the contents of the Misleading Material are baseless and misleading and urge you not to publish the same in any manner or through any medium.  Since you do not wish to wait for the document inspection and publish the Misleading Material, while reserving our position and as confirmed by you, the  response sent to you on 10th June 2019, as also the emails below, this email and the attachment thereto be also published along with the same.


Sincerely,
Corp Comm Team

Click here to download Lodha's final rebuttal: http://bit.ly/Lodha-Rebuttal-Final

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9) My request for firm appointment for inspection & one significant document

From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: My response to your rebuttal & invitation to inspect your documents

To: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>, <abhishek.lodha@lodhagroup.com>, <connect@mangalprabhatlodha.com>, <surendran.nair@lodhagroup.com>, <shaishav.dharia@lodhagroup.com>, <jasmine.bilimoria@lodhagroup.com>, <deepak.chitnis@lodhagroup.com>, <gopal.menghani@lodhagroup.com>, <jayant.mehrotra@lodhagroup.com>, <piyush.vora@lodhagroup.com>, <prashant.bindal@lodhagroup.com>, <shaleen.madan@lodhagroup.com>, Srichand Mandhyan <srichand.mandhyan@lodhagroup.com>, <tikam.jain@lodhagroup.com>, <viral.oza@lodhagroup.com>, <sanjyot.rangnekar@lodhagroup.com>, <sumit.kumar@lodhagroup.com>

Dear Corp Comm and others,

Rest assured, I shall publish our entire correspondence, including your rebuttals in their entirety, along with my article and video.

However, I am hereby giving you a further opportunity to rebut and repudiate the substance of my article and video, before they are published online.

To show the seriousness of your intention to give me a reasoned rebuttal, I request you to do the following:

1) Please give me an appointment tomorrow first half, for the proposed inspection of documents. During this inspection, kindly present in writing your arguments that you wish me to consider before publishing. Kindly revert immediately with the exact time and proposed venue of meeting for inspection of documents, and please call me immediately to confirm details of the same.

2) Also, please send me scans of one significant document that you feel will weaken the foundations of my article and video, and uphold your side of the story.

I will strongly urge you to respond to this request before 7:30 pm today, as I am already in the process of publishing my article and video tonight, along with your rebuttals etc.

A final parting footnote: Please understand that my timing of publication has nothing to do with my sources' alleged motives, and everything to do with your failure to provide even a shred of rebuttal on the substance of my story, despite my giving you five days for the same.

Events in the last few months have made me a lightning-rod, attracting people who are aggrieved with builders in general and Lodha in particular. I also attract whistleblowers from among your associates, who intimately know of many issues with the way you function. People of all walks of life are my sources, and their motivations for wanting to publish the facts known to them are usually not the same as my motivations for publishing them, Your continuing failure to rebut my public disclosures on grounds of facts and documents, and to address the underlying problems, will continue to reinforce my position as a lightning rod. I am driven by journalistic instinct and not by monetary loss and gain; make no mistake about this.

Yours sincerely
Krishnaraj Rao

 ------------------------------------

10) Lodha's last response

From: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: My response to your rebuttal & invitation to inspect your documents
To: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Dear Mr. Rao,

Our offices are now closed for the day and we will be able respond further to your mail (as below) by 12 noon tomorrow (12th June 2019).

Sincerely,

Corp Comm Team

-------------------------------------

10) My final response before publishing article & video on World Tower

From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: My response to your rebuttal & invitation to inspect your documents
To: corp comm <corp.comm@lodhagroup.com>
Cc: subhadra shukla <subhadrashukla108@gmail.com>

Very well, I am publishing now.

If you have something of substance to say tomorrow, please send it to me, and I will publish it verbatim on my blog and YouTube channel.

Thank you and best regards,
Krishnaraj Rao

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