Mumbai, 14th March, 2017: Today, I received an email that was sent on behalf of Ekta World Pvt Ltd that worried me for a few minutes — yeah, but only for a few minutes before I clearly saw that this crooked builder was bluffing and intimidating once again.
(Background: Ekta World has a troubled relationship with truthfulness and factuality. A couple of days back, the builder tried to scare freelance journalist Raju Vernekar that a matter was “subjudice” and that he would file a defamation suit against him also. That tactic backfired; instead of preventing Vernekar from publishing his story, it actually triggered him to publish this story in Afternoon Despatch & Courier! More about this incident in my blog here.)
Today, while at work, I received the following email:
“From: Avinash Vidwans <avinashvidwans@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 4:36 PM
Subject: Hearing of Application for interim and ad-interim relief in Special Civil Suit No. 36 of 2017 in the Court of C.J.(S.D.) at Vasai.
To: vernekar.raj@gmail.com, member@linkedin.com, krish.kkphoto@gmail.com, vineetmalik1@yahoo.co.in
Cc: deepti.n@ektaworld.com
Respected Sir / Madam,
Please find herewith attached copy of an Application for interim and ad-interim injunction to be moved against you Mr. Vineet Malik and Krishna Raj Rao in the Court of C.J.(S.D.) at Vasai on 15th day of March, 2017 at 11.00 am or so soon thereafter, on behalf of my client M/S Ekta Parksville Homes Pvt.Ltd.
Please take notice that, you may remain present if you so desire at the above mentioned time and date and venue.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully
Avinash Vidwans, Advocate.”
Attached to this email was this word file. The fun contents of this file are dissected and analyzed in my blog here. (For the sake of continuity, I am forced to separate these, but please don’t miss reading it, because the bluffs contained in that document are really hilarious!)
Anyway, after my first reaction subsided, I wrote this email in reply:
From: Krishnaraj Rao <krish.kkphoto@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 6:41 PM
Subject: Re: Hearing of Application for interim and ad-interim relief in Special Civil Suit No. 36 of 2017 in the Court of C.J.(S.D.) at Vasai.
To: Avinash Vidwans <avinashvidwans@gmail.com>
Cc: Raju Vernekar <vernekar.raj@gmail.com>, member@linkedin.com, Vineet Malik <vineetmalik1@yahoo.co.in>, Deepti Nair <deepti.n@ektaworld.com>, Gopal Mehta <advocategcm@gmail.com>, “Adv. Abdul Rasheed Qureshi” <i.rasheed1357@gmail.com>, Ashok Mohnani <ashok.m@ektaworld.com>
Dear Mr Avinash Vidwans,
1) I have been given no reason to believe that you are an advocate, or that you have been duly appointed by Ekta Builders to represent them. You have not even sent a copy of your vakalatnama signed by Mr Ashok Mohnani. Kindly furnish adequate proofs immediately.
2) Further, I have been given no reason to believe that the word file that you have sent to me is the authentic and true copy of the “Special Civil Suit” that you claim is being filed at Vasai Court. Hence, it cannot be considered to be Notice served to me. Kindly serve notice immediately in a way that will be legally acceptable and verifiable, i.e. hard copy or scanned copy of stamped and registered “Special Civil Suit”.
3) Please note further that you have deliberately and malafidely served this notice without giving adequate notice of 48 hours to enable us to respond. You have sent me this unsigned word file with barely 16 hours of notice, the previous evening. Hence, your foregoing email cannot be considered to be proper service of notice under any circumstances.
4) Please note further that Vasai Court is in no way the proper jurisdiction for filing of your case. Just because you have a project at Virar does not mean that you can file at Vasai. You also have a project at Nashik; that does not give the Nashik court proper jurisdiction over your case. As your client’s registered office is at Bandra, the court with proper jurisdiction will also within Mumbai jurisdiction. Hence, for want of proper jurisdiction, your court injunction, if filed, will be without proper jurisdiction, and will give me cause to seek proper reliefs against you for abuse of the judicial process.
5) Moreover, as there is currently no court injunction of any nature against my writings, please note that I will be publishing two stories about your double-dealings and fraudulent dealings with your customers before 3 am tomorrow morning. Since they are based solidly on documentary proofs that are in public domain, and are in public interest, there is no need for me to seek rebuttal from your client.
I wish your clients good luck in their attempts to restrain us from exposing their cheating and fraud. And when the proper occasion arises, I look forward to seeing your clients in court. Please be forewarned, I will spare no efforts to expose your clients’ fraudulent dealings, and I shall widely report the outcome of each and every court proceeding in future. That is not a threat, but a solemn promise.
For the record: I am acting on my own behalf as a freelance journalist. Mr Vineet Malik and other clients of Ekta World are my sources of information. I have not received a paisa of remuneration from these persons, nor do I intend to at any time in the future.
Please feel free to produce this email as proof before any forum, judicial or otherwise.
Best Wishes,
Krishnaraj Rao
——————-
After writing this email, I decided to put into public domain all that I had to say about the dealings of Ekta World before the next morning (Wednesday, 15th March), by when the Civil Judge may be induced to give an arbitrary order muzzling me.
But then, my activist colleague Sulaiman Bhimani checked the causelist and found that there is no hearing scheduled tomorrow (i.e. 15th March, 2017). As per the below causelist, the next hearing date is 18th April 2017, and the case status is “Awaiting Summons”. We are not needed to attend the hearingtomorrow, because there is no hearing!
So, Ekta World is bluffing as usual. The date given in the lawyer’s email is a lie. The question is: Why this lie? Are they thinking that we will panic, scramble to engage a lawyer, work overnight to draft a reply, and turn up at Vasai court at 11 am tomorrow, only to find with disappointment that there is no hearing? Or is Ekta World’s top honcho Ashok Mohnani hatching plans to have us assaulted or killed on the way to the court? Or, has he laid a trap to fix us by framing us in a false case of some sort? Vasai is a notorious area, being the home-turf of well-known criminal gangs.
As always, watch this space for further developments. Dekhte rahiye iss dharavahik ki UGLY kadee!
ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY
Krishnaraj Rao
9821588114
krish.kkphoto@gmail.com
PS: And in case you are wondering what I wrote about Ekta World that has them running to Civil Court, read these blog posts:
Sulaiman Bhimani