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 (more…)

The Politics of Who Can and Can’t Rape

Recently India has been seriously pondering over the most ridiculous question.  Is Pinki Pramanik a rapist? Well, that’s not the stupid question.  The stupid question is:

Is Pinki Pramanik male or female, because she apparently can be charged with the rape she’s accused of, by her female partner, only if it’s proved she is male!!

Pinki Pramanik is an Indian track athlete who has won numerous medals for India for the women’s track races at various international events.   Earlier this year, her live-in partner, another woman, brought charges of rape against her.  Apparently this partner shared pictures (more…)

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Recently Wikigender and the Land Portal had organized an online discussion on ways to secure women’s rights to own land [for more click here].  Women may constitute approximately 50% of the human society (not counting India and China that are trying to push that percentage to zero!), however they own less than 2% of the land worldwideWhy is this so?

I think that regardless of gender-neutral laws, even modern democracies like India that proudly flaunt their Constitution, have people in decision making capacities, as in government, law etc. who still apply the law within context of their old cultural mindsets.  So for example in a recent High Court ruling in Bombay regarding property dispute, the Court gave its ruling in the most gender-biased language that almost regards women like pieces of furniture that are moved from their fathers’ houses into their husbands’.  It said: (more…)