Thursday, November 13, 2008

Someone got swindled

Situation: You and your siblings own a property - a posh, most wanted property - at the most fashionable and high profile streets of Mumbai (Delhi / New York/ London - take your pick). In 2001 the property sold for Rs. 10 Million, but you know how the demand has increased over the years. This year beginning, you gave a power of attorney to one of your siblings to make a deal on your behalf and sell it off.

S/he sold it for Rs. 10 Million, and has given you your part of the share. But somehow you feel it is not the right approach - should it not have got you a little more than what it fetched in 2001? But, your sibling tells your that it is the only way, since the last deal was in 2001, and it did confirm what the going rate was. Why did s/he not get new price bids for the same --- oh no, the regulatory body says it is not fair to keep on checking what the rate is. Okay, you said.

But then, you find out that the buyer of the property has sold it off to another buyer for Rs. 75 Million, meaning you lost Rs 65 Million totally on the deal !

Why, you ask? How could it be?
> Did the buyer refurbish the property? No, the property is exactly the same. No changes/ additions made.
> Was there a market slump between your sale date and the resale date? To the contrary - it was a boom time when you sold the property, but a slump has started when the resale happened.

So, what exactly happened?

Was your sibling the culprit? Did s/he take an under-the-table 'black' component from the property buyer in lieu of the low official property price? Or was s/he plain stupid - but in that case, s/he would not have been given the task of selling the property at all.

So what do we do now? Should we just take him/her off the task of selling any more family properties? Or should we also find out more about The Mystery of the Missing Money?

Oh yes, it seems our Govt is not keen to do either of the above.
You do not believe me? Read on.

The Great Telecom Scam of Only Rs. 51000 crore
The King (Raja) Refuses to Accept any Mistake or Wrongdoing

And surprisingly, his response - prove that I am guilty, and I am *willing* to resign. So gracious and magnanimous - damn it, if you are guilty, you should Hang!

What is our only hope, you ask - the Courts.
Oh yes, they are.

Let us forget finding our Obama. If we can just prosecute the criminals in the system, ensure they are prosecuted, and teach a lesson to our criminal (and/or inept) politicians so that history does not keep repeating itself.

Sukh Ram Telecom Scam
Pramod Mahajan & Reliance

Oh, and by the way, it WAS you (and me) that got swindled here.
..

8 comments:

Sagarone said...

Yes we did get swindled and can not do anything about it, because afaik, the ruling coalition needs his party's support and would rather turn a blind eye to such petty misdemeanors. I mean, what is a few millions here or there in the larger scheme of things? Haven't others done better? So why should this guy and his party be denied the right to make hay while the sun shines? And was it really your money at all? Brahma satya, Jagat mithya. You know, people should learn not to spend too much time over such trivial matters but rather work towards their own salvation.

Vinod_Sharma said...

Forget criminals, you can barely convict terrorists. Sukh Ram got away clean despite crores of rupees strewn all over the house, under mattresses, inside pillows etc.

A system overhaul is needed. But no one seems to be concerned. Where is the time for governance?

Does it matter said...

@ sagarone
Ah, the limitations of coalition politics. This, btw, is not a few millions, it is 5 Lakh Millions! Well all politicians ARE working towards their (and their next few generations) salvation..

@ Vinod
Yes, Sukh Ram's mattresses are what legends are made of!
Telecom ofcourse seems to be the favourite of our politicians - in between we had the BJP and Shri Mahajan too.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2301/stories/20060127004603000.htm

Does it matter said...

@ All
Edited the post to add the multi-party perspective!

Rain Girl said...

sorry to talk about totally different stuff, but there's one thing that I love about your blog. You at least, write about what should concern us, trouble us, let us act upon. you at least blog. we do nothing.

Does it matter said...

@ raingirl

But there is actually so much more that could & should be done.. beyond blogging.

Maybe start a signature campaign, maybe a small movement, maybe more.
Ideally we need more like-minded people coming out into the political arena, maybe. But, we dont want to dirty our hands...

Writing is so easy to do - & talk is cheap.. And I am guilty to not wanting to do more, even though we should.

Rain Girl said...

@DIM... see, you are one of those who not only think but also act upon it. even if it was just writing it down, you made us aware about it. esp. me. coz i was in the dark about this particular scam.

awareness, you may agree, is the first step.

a small step... :)

Pinku said...

hahaha...u had me there with the story of the property in 2001 etc...

The less said about the corruption of politicians the better...after all what does one cup more or less matter to a lake of muck??