Consumer Ratingand Review

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Balkrishna Purnekar demands CBI probe into V-Care cheating case

Thane district Congress committee chief Balkrishna Purnekar has urged Maharashtra chief minister Pritviraj Chavan to order a CBI enquiry into the alleged multi crore cheating case by city-based V-Care group of companies, whose owners have been accused of duping gullible devotees in the name of God.

In a memorandum, Purnekar said the local police which had registered a complaint in the case had not done much progress since the last 3-4 months.

The company owner Sunil Saldhana and wife Rosita, are now absconding after they allegedly cheated many people in Mumbai of crores of rupees, he said.

They talked people into investing and multiplying their money with them over the years and then fled with crores of money. Many innocents have lost their life time earnings to them. Hence fast action should take against the guilty and all those involved with the V-Care fraud, the leader demanded.

Last year, several people had through consumer complaints and other websites raised their voice and warned the people about the fraud Thane company.

One Monica Musharraf from Mumbai had stated in the consumer complaints website that the company, which dealt in concept selling business, has managed to fool around 44,000 people all these years.

The company has been targetting all poor and middle class people to invest in their schemes and assured them more than three fold money in return on the amount they invested, it was alleged.

The incidents came to light when Lancy D'Souza of Andheri lodged a complaint at Naupada police station here of being cheated by the Manglorean couple.

After an FIR, police raided the company office and took into custody, directors Balraj Mallik, 32, Anju Pandey, 25, and Deepali Patil, 26. D'Souza alleged in the complaint that the Saldanha couple, who are absconding, cheated as many as 45,000 people from Mangalore, Pune, Bangalore and Dubai.

Apart from this, he also assured investors of providing them flats and a travel to Israel people, D'Souza has alleged in his complaint.

Police have registered a case under section 406, 420, 34 and are looking for the culprits.

The Saldanhas also organised the first transgender beauty queen pagaent in Mumbai recently and invited celebrities like Zeenat Aman and Celina Jaitley for the event.

Saturday, 26 March 2011

'Praise the Lord' : Mangalorean Fraudster Flees with Crores of Rupees

Sat, Mar 26 2011 10:21:10 AM

News & Pics: Rons Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai (SB/VA)

Mumbai, Mar 26: In this fast-paced world as much as people are turning materialistic, the need for peace through spiritual bliss and blind beliefs too has seen an increase. The trend and this naievity of people has provided the right fodder for opportunists to pose as Godmen or mediator to God in order to make some easy big money.

An incident of duping people of their money in the name of religion has been reported from here. The fraudulent duo who have fled with crores of rupees have been identified as Saldanha couple, basically from Ammembal, Sajipa, Bantwal of Dakshina Kannada district. They preached the devotional phrase, Praise the Lord and in turn also sowed the seeds of greed for money amongst thousands of gullible devotees under the company name, V-care Group of Companies. It can be recollected that Saldanha through his company had also announced first-ever Pan India Transgender taleny Contest named V-Care Indian SuperQueen at Taj President Hotel in Mumbaio Jan 11, 2010 in the presence of actress Celina jaitely, transgender Lakshminarayan Tripathi and actress of Bandit Queen fame Seema Biswas.

Saldanha with celebrities

The case of coning came to light though a bit late when Lancy D'Souza Jerimeri of Andheri East lodged a complaint at Naupada police station, Thane of being cheated by V-care Group of Companies managing director Sunil Saldanha and his wife. After registration the case through FIR, the police raided the company office and took into custody, directors Balraj Mallik (32), Anju Pandey (25) and Deepali Patil (26). Further, Lancy D'Souza has alleged in the complaint that the Saldanha couple are absconding.

It is said that Saldanha has cheated as many as 45,000 devotees stating that he is a devout as well as an entrepreneur, emotionally blackmailing them to invest in his business. Apart from this, he also has assured the investors of providing them flats and a travel to Israel among other inducements. Among those who were influenced by his conniving words were people from Mangalore, Pune, Bangalore as well as Dubai, Lancy D'Souza has alleged in his complaint.

Police have registered a case under section 406, 420, 34 and are looking for the culprits.

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

CM quota: urban development dept told to file reply

When Andheri resident Lancy D’Souza, 40, heard of a scheme where he would receive 10 times the amount he invested in a Thane firm, he thought he had hit a jackpot.

MUMBAI Updated: Mar 23, 2011 01:34 IST

Susamma Kurian
Hindustan Times

When Andheri resident Lancy D’Souza, 40, heard of a scheme where he would receive 10 times the amount he invested in a Thane firm, he thought he had hit a jackpot. D’Souza invested Rs6,500 in V Care, a Thane-based firm, in August 2009 and was promised Rs70,000 in 12 months.

He is among the 78 victims who lodged a complaint with the Naupada police on Monday.

The police arrested three officials, Balraj Malik, 32, Anju Pandey, 25, and Deepali Patil, 26. Sunil Saldanha, the managing director, is missing. Police suspect that nearly 40,000 people have been cheated and the total fraud could run into crores.

Monday, 23 June 2008

Son’s marksheet helps in arrest of fraudster

June 23rd, 2008 - 11:32 pm ICT by IANS

New Delhi, June 23 (IANS) A man accused of cheating several traders in the capital to the tune of millions of rupees was arrested from Meerut after the police found a clue to his whereabouts from his son’s Class 12 marksheet. Ruia, who had allegedly cheated several traders in Chandni Chowk and Lohari Gate area in the walled Delhi, was arrested Sunday.

Ruia, 40, worked as a middleman to arrange loans for various parties from prospective lenders for the last six-seven years in Chandni Chowk. He operated from his office in the same area and lived in Ghaziabad.

The police were looking for him after Nitin Gupta, a trader, complained that Ruia had cheated him of Rs.700,000 and had fled with his family.

“Ruia issued post-dated cheques to Gupta as a guarantee for the borrowed money. But when the cheques bounced, Ruia escaped with his family,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (North Delhi) Devesh Srivastva said Monday.

“When we came to know that Ruia’s son Viresh Kant was studying in 12th class, we approached the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) office at Preet Vihar in Delhi and found that his son had passed the board examination from D.P.M. Public School Behsuma in Meerut,” Srivastva added.

The police said the accused was arrested from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh when he went to collect his son’s marksheet from the school.

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Tuesday, 12 November 1996

Law Report: Longer prison sentences for knife killings

LAW REPORT: 12 November 1996

Paul Magrath
Tuesday 12 November 1996 00:02 GMT
0 comments

R v Latham; Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (Lord Justice Kennedy, Mr Justice McKinnon, Mr Justice Johnson) 5 November 1996The existing sentencing tariff for offences of manslaughter resulting from the use of a knife, deliberately carried as a weapon in a public place, was too low and should be increased from around seven years to between 10 and 12 years.

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) granted an Attorney General's reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 for leave to refer to the court a sentence which he regarded as unduly lenient. The offender was Daniel George Latham, who was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for manslaughter, with three concurrent sentences of 18 months each for unlawful wounding, after pleading guilty to these offences before Mr Justice Wright at Maidstone Crown Court on 18 April 1996.

David Calvert-Smith (CPS HQ) for the Attorney General; William Clegg QC (assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the offender.

Lord Justice Kennedy said the offender, then aged 20, and a friend of his had become involved in a fight with eight other young men in the car park of a night-club in Gillingham, Kent. The offender produced a knife and stabbed four of his opponents. One of them died and the others required hospital treatment.

In interview the offender said he had been attacked and had used a knife in self-defence. He had been carrying a butterfly-knife, the blade of which was almost four inches long. He said he carried it in case he had trouble with others with whom he had previously fought. He said he had "lunged" with the knife but could not explain the injuries to three of the victims' backs.

He was originally indicted for murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, contrary to section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. But after discussion between counsel and with the judge in chambers, pleas were accepted instead of guilty to the lesser offences of manslaughter, on the ground of provocation, and unlawful wounding.

Although prosecuting counsel had not registered any objection to this at the time, the Attorney General was entitled to refer the matter to the Court of Appeal, and that court, if satisfied it would be right to do so, could increase the sentence. The discussion in chambers gave rise to no jurisdictional bar.

The Attorney General submitted that for offences of manslaughter resulting from the deliberate carrying of a knife in a public place with a view to it being used as a weapon by someone who took drink or drugs and then used it so as to cause death, a sentencing tariff had become established which was inappropriate.

In relation to this type of manslaughter, courts in recent years had tended to impose a sentence of about seven years' imprisonment on conviction, and four years on a plea of guilty. The sentence imposed by Wright J in this case was thus entirely in line with the existing tariff, but the Attorney General submitted that that tariff should now be reviewed.

His Lordship rejected the defendant's submission that section 36 of the 1988 Act did not permit the appeal court to increase an existing tariff, since a sentence within the tariff range could not be considered "unduly lenient" so as to entitle the court to interfere. There was nothing in the wording of section 36 to prevent the Attorney General's concluding that a tariff sentence was unduly lenient and it was difficult to see what there was to prevent the appeal court from coming to the same conclusion.

Section 2 of the Offensive Weapons Act 1996 increased to four years the penalty for carrying an offensive weapon without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. That demonstrated that Parliament shared the much publicised public concern about the carrying of knives.

Their Lordships were persuaded that the tariff sentence of seven years on conviction in this type of case was too low. Where an offender went out with a knife, carrying it as a weapon, and used it to cause death, even if there was provocation, he should expect to receive on conviction in a contested case a sentence of 10 to 12 years.

In the circumstances of the present case, however, it would be inappropriate to increase the offender's sentence.