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, 4th October, 2018: Is the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police deliberately going easy on Bhagtanis? Are the forensic auditors and Forensic Science Laboratory going slow? Eyebrows must rise that EOW's chargesheets of  Bhagtani Riyo and Serenity ,  filed in April and August,   are against Diipesh Bhagtani, and not against JVPD Properties Pvt Ltd and its directors Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani.  Download Riyo FIR & Chargesheet  Download Serenity FIR & Chargesheet Regardless of whether it is proper or improper, omission from the chargesheet gives  Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani extra time to continue living abroad and doing hera-pheri . As long as they are considered only suspects, and not chargesheeted offenders, they remain safe from Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, Interpol Red Corner Notices, deportation to India, police interrogation and judicial custody.  Two things that EOW cops often tell victims:  (a) The...

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, 27th August, 2018: Last week, Sapphire Welfare Association's (SWA) consent terms -- designed to getting Bhagtanis off the hook -- were set aside by an order of Bombay High Court . It was thanks to another association, called Dahisar Sapphire Flat Owner Welfare Association (DSFOWA), who pinpointed to the high court a deemed conveyance orders in favour of Panch Dham Society.  The Panch Dham deemed conveyance orders proved beyond doubt that Sapphire project land was not  available for transfer by Bhagtani to SWA. (Association-wallahs of other Bhagtani projects shepherding gullible victims towards accepting project land are requested to take note.) Read the Panch Dham deemed conveyance orders here . Panch Dham orders also put the spotlight on two new Bhagtani family members who were hitherto unknown. Has anybody ever heard of Anand P Bhagtani and Narain P Bhagtani, brothers of our well-known Lacchman P Bhagtani?  Say hello to two brand-new Bhagtanis...

12th July, 2018, Mumbai: My blog criticizing the consent terms of Sapphire Welfare Association (SWA) with Bhagtanis raised a hornet's nest. Some angry people asked whether I had any solution for getting their money back. If I didn't, I should just shut up, they said. (They also said a whole bunch of other things, but let us focus on the constructive part.) Yes, since you ask, I have specific ideas about how to get your money back. My proposed method is: Cash-and-carry (CAC). If a party's credit-worthiness is zero and he is already deep in debt, trade with them on CAC terms. Stop extending credit!  What Bhagtanis want from you now is quashing of FIR and withdrawal of complaints. What you want is your money. So you should aim to get what you want at the same time as (or before) Bhagtanis what they want -- not a day later! Like they say in movies, "Ek haath se do, ek haath se lo". Shopkeepers call it cash-and-carry. Everything else can be negotiated, but f...

Mumbai, 7th July, 2018: I wrote an article yesterday disclosing the consent terms signed by Sapphire Welfare Association (SWA) with Bhagtani bulders. *(In case you haven't read it, click here and read it first.) Until we got our hands on these consent terms two days ago and placed it in the public domain, it was a closely guarded secret.  If consent terms is a straightforward deal, why didn't SWA announce their achievement immediately? Why were there only cryptic references such as "It is time to buy the mithai, but don't distribute it". Why keep it secret? The reason is: the consent terms are a great escape for Bhagtanis. They seek to give a clean chit and easy exit from the Sapphire cases to the absconding builders. Obvious issues in the consent terms : 1) If fugitives evading Indian judiciary sign an agreement in India through their power-of-attorney, what is its legal validity?  The consent terms signed by Diipesh Bhagtani in jail, on behalf of J...

Mumbai, 6th July, 2018: When the Sapphire Welfare Association (SWA) enrolled members and filed its Civil Suit/Plaint in Bombay High Court in a rush-rush hush-hush manner, the victims of Bhagtani Sapphire were split into two groups: (1) those who believed that their intent was genuinely to help the victims and (2) those who believed that their intent was to help the Bhagtanis get their criminal cases quashed, by giving the victims a lollipop.  My personal belief (based on my one year's experience of how Bhagtani's stooges manipulate people's minds through Whatsapp groups) is that the intention was solely to help Bhagtanis to come out of their legal troubles. I believe that gullible victims were drawn into the association by showing them them false hopes and dreams. And I believe that the consent terms signed between Bhagtani and SWA on 26th July, based on which the plaint before Bombay High Court was withdrawn, is fraudulent.  Through these consent terms, Bhagtani'...

Mumbai, 27th June, 2018: Many FIRs have been filed at Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) against Bhagtani builders for scamming hundreds of people in half a dozen Bhagtani projects, but no FIR has been filed against them for scamming people through the projects of allied builders such as Ravi Group and Origin Realtors LLP. It is high time for such FIRs to be registered against Bhagtanis where the co-accused are Ravi Group builders Ketan Tokershi Shah and Jayesh Tokershi Shah, and also Gaurav Ketan Shah, Yash Jayesh Shah and Bhavya Jayesh Shah of Origin Realtors LLP -- a close-knit family similar to the Bhagtanis. Some Bhagtani victims duped into investing in Shubh Atika are preparing to approach EOW with complaints of cheating, conspiracy and -- most significant of all -- extortion i.e. IPC Section 383 . How extortion? By putting these flat-buyers into fear of irretrievably losing their life-savings, these builders extracted more money from them, and continue to do so.   To unders...

Mumbai, 10th May, 2018: Hundreds of cheated home-buyers of Bhagtani builders (also known as Jaycee Homes and JVPD Properties) are running from pillar to post, trying to recover lakhs and crores of rupees that they paid for booking flats. Circumstances have led most victims to believe that Diipesh, Mukesh and Lakshman Bhagtani have no money. People have become almost convinced that over Rs 450 crore collected towards Riyo, Sapphire, Serenity and Savannah projects has somehow magically vanished like water poured on desert sand. "EOW officers say that they have freezed all the accounts,  and all accounts have zero balance," say victims who are in regular touch with the police. But if this is true, then how did Bhagtani repay an SBI loan of Rs 12.40 crore in April 2018? Look at this screenshot from Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) website: If you can't believe your eyes, read this Certificate of Satisfaction of Charge   issued by Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Ye...

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...