The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 9th September, 2018: Victims of Bhagtani Serenity are experiencing a powerful current sweeping them towards settlement with the Bhagtani builders. What the builders want is a clean chit i.e. withdrawal of criminal complaints, quashing of FIRs, and closure of proceedings under Negotiable Instruments Act. What they are offering in exchange is conveyance of Serenity project land and/or transfer of development rights in favour of "Serenity Welfare Association". Invitation to the first meeting of this association is being circulated on Whatsapp. It says: Dear All, 1st Meeting of ''SERENITY WELFARE ASSOCIATION" Expect to be held on 23 September 2018..... All Serenity  Member's (Buyers) are Requested to Attend..... Time: BTN 10:00 -11:00 AM Venue : Serenity Plot or as Decided by Member's (Buyers) Has this association been formed and registered? Has a civil case already been filed by this association? It is doubtful. But it appears that the lea...

Mumbai, 13th April, 2018: The MahaRERA order of 5th April is a victory for victims of Bhagtani Serenity, because it grants the reliefs sought by the complainants. It directs JVPD Properties to refund the amounts paid by the complainants towards booking a flat in Serenity, along with interest @ 10.05% and also Rs 20,000/- towards costs. Well hurrah, we got what we asked for. Or did we? Let us think about how things will play out in future. Does anybody believe that complainant Pradeep Badkur (and others like him who will receive similar orders very shortly) will receive the money from Bhagtani? Not likely. Under the current circumstances, it is almost guaranteed that Bhagtani will respond to this order with typical non-compliance. What can the complainant do if Bhagtani does not refund the money? Civil contempt proceedings have to be initiated against JVPD Properties in a civil court.  (Please note, the contempt proceedings will have to be against the company JVPD Propert...

Mumbai, 8th April, 2018: Yes, we are all talking about how the builder who buys Serenity project from Xander Finance (or Debt Recovery Tribunal) should complete the project and give flats to the allottees. But keep in mind that the consideration value of the project will depend on the development potential of the project land. Do we know what its development potential is? Let us first understand the contradictions in our case. According to Diipesh Bhagtani's second affidavit to Bombay High Court, Serenity project has 389 allottees.  However, Bhagtani's declaration to MahaRERA, visible on its website, says something very different. It says that Serenity project has only 86 flats and zero booked apartments i.e. zero allottees. Nobody would accuse Bhagtani of telling the truth, and so such self-contradictions were to be expected. However, these inconsistent figures raise an inconvenient question: Does the project site of Serenity have enough land to acc...

Mumbai, 8th April, 2018: This article is relevant to all home-buyers, although it is written for the 2500-odd victims of Bhagtani builders, i.e. the people who booked flats in Bhagtani Riyo (Mira Road), Sapphire (Dahisar), Serenity (Powai) and Savannah (Kanjurmarg). Bhagtani's victims have no registered agreement of sale; they only have allotment letters that looks like this specimen . Although they have paid well over 20% of flat's consideration value, the builders have deliberately avoided the duty cast upon them by MOFA (Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act) to execute registered sale agreements. Flourishing their allotment letters and a scanty understanding of their legal position, Bhagtani's cheated flat-buyers are approaching various legal forums. Over-dependency on lawyers is making some Bhagtani victims the victims of lawyers also. Due to either mental laziness or a subconscious fear of receiving bad news, people aren't asking the right questions. Some key ...

Mumbai, 31st March, 2018: The Bhagtani family and their henchmen have in-depth understanding of the flaws in our psychology, such as (1) financial illiteracy (2) blind trust in builders (3) habitual distrust of authorities including police (4) reluctance to go to court (5) penny-wise pound-foolishness (6) tendency for needless arguments, gossip-mongering and petty politics (7) herd mentality. Bhagtanis have a decade of experience in exploiting these weaknesses and repeatedly milking the same people over and over again. Bhagtanis have unfailingly made flat-buyers sign legal paperwork that is against their own interests , and make terrible choices that make them feel good in the short run and make them poorer in the long run. Just because Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani are absconding and their office is closed, people wrongly believe that Bhagtanis are no longer active. A small and determined band of Bhagtani henchmen are still active, busily laying out their nets for catching the...

Mumbai, 24th March, 2018: Bhagtani Riyo victims' efforts to compel EOW to apply MPID Act got a setback last week as the special judge rejected their application. After initial disappointment, the victims' reaction was: "We must appeal!" But the question arises: Is appealing likely to be fruitful? Let us apply our mind without sentimental attachment to past decisions and actions. First, let us remember why we filed the application under MPID. Why MPID? The full name of MPID Act is "Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 1999". It is designed to protect "depositors in financial establishments". We had three challenges: (1) People who paid Bhagtani money are not exactly "depositors". (2) JVPD Properties Pvt Ltd is not exactly a "financial establishment" (3) Section 2(c)(iv)(a) of the MPID Act explicitly excludes "advance against order for goods or services" from ...

Mumbai, 19th January, 2018: Yesterday, Diipesh Bhagtani was produced before the Metropolitan Magistrate and his police custody was extended till Monday, 22nd Jan. He will be produced again on Monday, and possibly remanded to judicial custody for some weeks or months. Alternatively, he may be released and immediately re-arrested for Savannah and Sapphire FIRs as he doesn't have anticipatory bail. Everything depends on what the EOW bosses are thinking and how forcefully the public prosecutor argues before the magistrate. If the public prosecutor  argues convincingly, Diipesh may spend months in Arthur Road or Byculla jail. Earlier, time was Bhagtanis' best friend. That friendshop broke last Thursday when Bombay High Court dismissed their anticipatory bail application ( Read the order ), and EOW arrested Diipesh Bhagtani. Now time is Bhagtani's enemy, because every passing day increases the chances Diipesh will lose his marbles during police interrogation. The police ...

Mumbai, 7th January, 2018: Diipesh Bhagtani's two affidavits are like bikinis -- what they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is crucial. The two bikini affidavits in Bombay High Court are signed by Diipesh Bhagtani alone, in his individual capacity and not as a director of multiple corporate entities. This conceals dozens of important facts and connections. These affidavits give a superficial semblance of truthfulness and transparency, but the only thing that they do is misdirect your attention. Jo dikhta hai woh hai nahin , aur jo hai woh dikhta nahin hai. Got it? Download and read Diipesh Bhagtani's FIRST affidavit: http://bit.ly/2q37Dw5 This is the affidavit wherein, pursuant to the hearing held on 29th September, Diipesh, "along with other applicants", undertook to deposit Rs 22 crore in six equal installments in six months with the registrar of the high court, towards "settlement of the entire dispute" to be "paid off to th...

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...