I Need Protection and Your Urgent Action on the ‘Palm Place Syndicate’ Benami (Fake) Bank Accounts: My Letter To @RBI @RBIGov @dir_ed and @Kolkata_Police

On 16 Nov, 2015, I Had Sent the Following Letter to The Offices Addressed Below, Requesting Protection and Urgent Action on Benami (Fake) Bank Accounts under the Name “Palm Place Syndicate,” And on the Criminal Nexus Involved, Who Are a Serious Threat to Me and My Mother’s Safety

TO: Mr. Gaurav Sharma, DC of Police, SE Division, Kolkata
TO: Mr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai
TO: Mr. Karnal Singh, Director, Enforcement Directorate, New Delhi

1. I have enclosed in the letter for Mr. Gaurav Sharma, DC Police, SE, Kolkata, a cheque (no.689087 of SBI) from my mother, Indira Banerji of the amount Rs.6000/- made out A/C Payee to “Palm Place Syndicate.” This is the benami (fake) bank account (S/B 04770100017689 in Indian Overseas Bank, Ballygunge Park Rd., Kolkata), I have already complained about to all your offices. We’ve been forced to put Rs.1,04,000/- into this account since June 2015, due to harassment, threats, assault and destruction of our property. I am writing, because we cannot take this anymore and we urgently need the police, RBI and ED to take action on these accounts and on the individuals involved in this extortion nexus to ensure our safety. The banks have refused to act as it involves internal corruption. Karaya police station has not acted despite our FIRs on extortion, assault, and property damage (FIR 217, FIR 292, FIR 539). [See Appendix 21]

2. At the back of the check my mother has written this note to explain why she is sending it:
“I, Indira Banerji, do not want to put this money in the account S/B 04770100017689 which is under the name ‘Palm Place Syndicate.’ But I have been forced under threat, violence and other pressure to deposit this and other cheques by the following:
1) Biman Dhar (Address, Phone)
2) Prem Prakash Sahoo (Address, Phone)
3) Somnath Bhattacharyya (HR, Premiere World Tech Ltd., Address, Phone)
4) Michael J. Pook (Employee of Premier World Tech, Occupant of Indira Banerji’s flat no.7 for 28 years, Phone)
5) A.K. Ghosh (Victor Moses Co., Address; phone)
I am asking Mr. Gaurav Sharma (D.C. Police, SE) to give the check to one of the five above , if he thinks this is right.”

3. In October 2014, I discovered the ‘Palm Place Syndicate’ account in the Standard Chartered Bank (a/c 33610022158) into which these men had been making my mother put money for “maintenance” of her ownership flats for many years, is a benami (fake) account. The account has no registration, PAN, identity proof, or address proof, and had been in the bank’s legal cell since 2010. We found this out when Mr. Biman Dhar, Mr. Nikhilesh Chandra Roy [phone], Mr. Prem Prakash Sahoo and Mr. Pinakpani Chakravarti [phone], conspired to make my mother, Indira Banerji a signatory to that account in Sept 2014, by saying they now wanted a “lady” to take care of the “building society account.” I discovered that the account had already been served the final legal closure notice two months prior to that. Prior to this, they had blocked my mother from any access to this bank account even though with two flats she is a majority flat owner in the building. [See Appendix 1, 3, 7, 8]

4. They also pulled out all the money in the account through K.R. Sriram, the auditor who (I then realized) had been making fake audit reports on Palm Place Syndicate’s benami bank account till 2013. Mr. Sriram has refused to communicate with us. [See Appendix 4, 10, 11, 12]

5. Mr. Biman Dhar and the other flat owners have refused to give us any proof of registration and byelaws for ‘Palm Place Syndicate’ as a registered building society. They make random demands for large sums of money and make us deposit the money directly in the account without giving any receipt. They make random cash withdrawals, write checks to ‘self’, give fake name of companies for repair and paints, and refuse to provide any bills, accounts or receipts for money taken or used. Their demands keep escalating and now they want in lakhs. They have conspired to harass us by sabotaging our drinking water, destroying our property, and physical violence. They are doing this because there are no official documents, and they are using the benami accounts to extort money but likely also for other illegal activities. We don’t know how many benami accounts in how many banks they have under this name of ‘Palm Place Syndicate,’ or what activities they are used for. One owner, Mrs. Ruchi Jain [phone] told us she had also opened an account with Mr. Dhar in the UTI bank [See Appendix 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 23]

6. Mr. Dhar has assaulted me, as did Mr. Prem Prakash Sahoo ,very violently, both demanding money into these accounts. But when the police came, Mr. Sahoo denied he demanded any money, or that he knows anything. If we ask questions about Palm Place Syndicate registration, byelaws or bank accounts, or accounts Mr. Sahoo flies into a violent rage and attacks us [See Appendix 7, 8, 20] .

7. Mr. Biman Dhar has also conspired with my mother’s tenant to blackmail and pressurize us to put money into this benami account. For the last 28 years Mr. Michael J. Pook who works for Premier World Tech Ltd., had his company take on lease my mother’s flat no.7 . Mr. Pook is a close friend of Mr. Biman Dhar’s, and now lives most of the year in the UK. The company has been hanging on to the flat even though Mr. Pook spends only a few weeks in India. Even though we informed Mr. Pook and Mr. Bhattacharyya in his office about what Mr. Dhar was doing, and asked them not to communicate with him, Mr. Bhattacharyya sent us a letter demanding we either put the money into Dhar’s benami account or they will put our rent money into that account. We told them that’s a violation of their lease agreement with us, and that they were criminally conspiring with Mr. Dhar to blackmail us for their mutual benefit. We asked them to state in writing they’d not have any communications with Mr. Dhar. But Mr. Pook and his office have refused to respond. We have told them to vacate our flat by Dec 01, 2015, but they still refuse to respond. [ See Appendix 16,17,18,19] [NOTE: MR. Pook and his office finally surrendered our flat on Dec 27, 2015. After 4 months of silence, and no response, where they had even changed the locks on our flat’s door, they were pressurized to respond and release our flat, after I complained to The British High Commission and to the the Office of the British Prime Minister. However they still need to answer to the fact they helped Biman Dhar and his criminal nexus extort vast amounts of money from my mother into an illegal bank account.]

8. Mr. Biman Dhar has also conspired with advocate A.K. Ghosh of Victor Moses Law Frm to blackmail, extort money and harass us. Mr. Ghosh sent a letter representing himself as advocate for Biman Dhar in May/June 2015, and a letter representing himself as advocate for ‘Palm Place Syndicate’ in September 2015 and demanded a huge amount of about 1 lakh, with no bills or accounts and threatened to cut off utilities. He refused to provide authenticated proof of Palm Place Syndicate registration or byelaws. He has been taking money out of the Palm Place Syndicate account regularly even though I told him it was a conflict of interest as he was forcing my mother under threat to put money into an illegal account from which he was then taking money. Mr. Ghosh was the advocate for my grandfather’s will, with Mr. Biman Dhar and Mr. N.C. Roy as executors, and he did not contact my mother, a beneficiary, to inform her when the probate came through in August 2010. The will had been contested under my mother and grandmother Mrs. Manjari Dhar’s names because it was believed Mr. Dhar had forged the will. At the time of the probate my mother needed to be there but was left out so Mr. Roy and Mr. Dhar with Mr. Ghosh’s help could make a deal on a large piece of property at Maheshtala. We found out 8 months later and we had to get our own lawyer, because the executors refused to give my mother the copy of the probate and the Deed of Assent and wanted her to just come and sign whatever was put in front of her in Mr. A.K. Ghosh’s office. This gives us reason to believe Advocate A.K. Ghosh has been conspiring with Biman Dhar and N.C. Roy to cheat my mother of her two flats and the 20% share of the land ownership which came with the Deed. [See Appendix 24, 25, 26, 27]

9. This is an extremely dangerous situation where in a small building the owners have formed a criminal nexus around benami accounts, and we believe have a vested interested in harassing and intimidating us off the property. We do not know how many benami accounts they have and what they have been doing with them. Mr. Biman Dhar has never had a career or profession, and is therefore very dangerous. Mr. N.C. Roy has a prior record of being fired from Coromandel International for misappropriation of funds. The Auditor K. R. Sriram works for Mr. Roy. One owner, Rahul Mahindra Nath Ghosh, bought a flat in the building 1½ years ago, has never been seen and the flat is empty. His parents [phone] come and ‘vote’ with Mr. Dhar to force us to put money in these accounts but then disappear and won’t answer questions. We heard he lives in the UK, and a public record shows someone by the same name has had the UK government take action for money laundering through foreign banks. It needs to be pointed out that Standard Chartered is a UK based foreign bank in India. [See Appendix 5, 6, 9, 28, 29]

10. The reason we are targeted is because we are two single women. This I have seen often as a women’s rights activist in India. My mother is an army widow and a senior citizen, and economically we don’t have the kind of money and power that these men do, and that’s why they see us as easy targets. Women like us, are becoming prey to criminal nexuses like this, with property interest, all over Kolkata and urban India. We read about it every day. This is the same as witch lynching in villages, where single women are targeted by gangs of men who want to grab their property. Under RBI Master Circulars rules these bank accounts must be frozen immediately, and correct police action taken against everyone involved. Palm Place Syndicate must be declared illegal, and all the bank accounts must be closed. Only Biman Dhar knows how many accounts and where they are. I request the RBI, the Enforcement Directorate and the Kolkata Police to please take urgent action.

regards,
Rita Banerji
http://www.ritabanerji.com

Director, The 50 Million Missing Campaign
http://www.50millionmissing.info
ENCLOSED – 29 ATTACHMENTS, APPENDIX PAGES NUMBERED 1-29