The establishment is throwing its toys out of the pram, with old-guard political broadcasters struggling to cope with change writes Faiza Shaheen in The Guardian
BBC viewers used to the genteel, unflappable Andrew Marr might have had a shock on Sunday morning when the veteran broadcaster suddenly snapped. His guest, Shami Chakrabarti, explaining how Labour would follow through the Brexit referendum result, said: “I don’t know about you, Andrew, but I’m a democrat.” To which he barked, jabbing his crib notes in her face: “Don’t try and patronise me – I’m as much a democrat as you are!”
Change is hard to deal with – especially, it seems, for old-guard political broadcasters. Right now the number of women and people of colour coming forward and challenging the establishment is growing and the establishment is not taking it at all well. Yes, we can read their behaviour as bullying and obviously unacceptable, but Marr’s retort to Chakrabarti is just another sign that they have their knickers in a twist.
As well as Marr’s aggression, in recent weeks we’ve had Andrew Neil tweeting an outrageous insult about the award-winning journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Adam Boulton retweeting people who chastise me for sounding like I’m from east London, and Piers Morgan telling people of colour they should leave the country if they don’t take more pride in Britain.
The more I find myself in prestigious TV green rooms, traditionally not the spaces for women of colour from a working-class background, the more I see how establishment biases play out both on and off screen.
The first time I went on the Andrew Marr Show I was struck by the “in-crowd” cosiness of it all. In the green room the guests’ conversation consisted of showing off about who’d most recently had dinner with David Davis. On another occasion a Tory grandee completely ignored me. He said hello and goodbye to everyone else (all older, middle-class and white) on the panel and just looked straight past me as if I were invisible. This was particularly weird given that I directly addressed him while we were on air.
It’s no coincidence that before before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other politician
Sometimes the bias is more subtle. The organisation I run, Class, is often introduced on air as a leftwing or trade-union-supported thinktank. This doesn’t bother me – we’re transparent about where we get our money from and our political stance. However, it does irk me that my counterparts on the right are almost never introduced with their political bias upfront – and they are rarely transparent about where their funding comes from, which means that their vested interests are never called out.
And let’s consider why Marr might have had so much latent anger towards Chakrabarti: could it be that he no longer understands the world around him? He probably never imagined the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, whose shadow cabinet includes more working-class people, women and ethnic minorities than any before.
We cannot let the media dinosaurs – people who should be taking a long hard look at their prejudices – make us feel we’re the ones in the wrong. And this has real-world consequences: it’s no coincidence that before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other politician.
Nowadays I’ve taken to drawing satisfaction when seeing outbursts such as Marr’s: it’s the privileged white-male equivalent of throwing toys out of the pram, and shouting: “It isn’t fair!” We need to fight their attitudes and demand fairer representation, but we should also take pride in the fact that they’re finally being forced to acknowledge us.
Tuesday 20 November 2018
Monday 19 November 2018
When a woman sought justice on harassment, the Lords closed ranks
Jasvinder Sanghera has spent her life fighting sexual abuse. But the upper house has shielded Lord Lester from punishment writes Kate Maltby in The Guardian
Jasvinder Sanghera: “How can I suggest that victims of sexual harassment and bullying should complain to the Lords? I don’t want them to go through what I’ve been through.”
When the #MeToo movement hit Westminster last year, some didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Those of us who had put our names to complaints of sexual harassment were presented as over-privileged women operating in elite institutions: if we were miffed by the odd indecent proposal, or the occasional lunge from a politician, perhaps we needed an education in real suffering.
No one can similarly accuse Jasvinder Sanghera of being sheltered when it comes to sexual violence. At 14 she ran away from home to escape a forced marriage, sleeping rough at first. Her sister Robina was less lucky. At the age of 24, Robina fatally set herself on fire after being told the family would disown her if she walked out on her husband’s physical violence. Since her sister’s death, Sanghera has spent 25 years campaigning against sexual abuse in traditional communities. Her charity, Karma Nirvana, helped make forced marriage overseas a criminal offence.
Last week, Sanghera outed herself as the woman who had made a complaint of sexual harassment against the Lib Dem peer Lord Lester. She would have felt like a “phoney”, she says, if she had continued campaigning against sexual violence in the family while allegedly tolerating harassment in the workplace.
Sanghera claimed that, while lending his support to her work, Lester had groped and harassed her and eventually promised: “If you sleep with me I will make you a baroness within a year”. He allegedly threatened to retaliate when she refused. Lester strongly denies all the allegations, though an investigation by the Lords’ commissioner for standards found against him. That investigation has since been scrutinised by two committee reviews, both of which again found against Lester. Overall, two law lords, two former lord chancellors, the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and 15 other peers have examined the case and ruled in Sanghera’s favour. But according to Lester’s friends in the House of Lords, this isn’t good enough.
As soon as the last appeal failed, Lord Pannick, a respected QC who is a close friend and supporter of Lester’s, launched a media campaign to discredit the investigation process in which he had just participated – including making the astonishing claim that Lester should have been allowed personally to cross-examine a woman who had accused him of sexual assault. Pannick’s campaign against Sanghera’s credibility read like a textbook case of establishment mobilisation: a column in the Times, where he is a regular columnist, and an appearance on the Today programme, where he called Sanghera “vague and contradictory”. There are, he alleges, errors or discrepancies in her memory. No doubt there are, at a distance of 12 years. But crucially, six witnesses gave evidence that Sanghera had confided in them about the alleged harassment at the time.
In his newspaper column and on the radio, Pannick drew our attention to a friendly note that Sanghera had inscribed to Lester in a copy of her book, after the key incident. Yet on neither occasion did Pannick acknowledge that Sanghera had been heavily questioned by the commissioner on this point, as she had been on every “challenge” made by Lester’s team. Sanghera’s side of the story is that Lester had requested the inscription at a large public setting “at the front of the queue of around 100 people”. She was still reliant on Lester’s help for her policy campaigns. She repeatedly told friends at the time that she still felt uncomfortable. But from Pannick’s media interventions, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a smoking gun that had never been put to Sanghera in the investigation.
It is profoundly depressing that after a year of public discussion about sexual harassment, educated men still claim not to understand the pressure women feel to show harassers that there are no “hard feelings” . A female barrister at Pannick’s own chambers had the guts to point this out on Twitter, writing last week that: “I was sexually harassed by a Crown Court judge whom I spent a week work shadowing. At the end of the week I not only thanked him profusely for the opportunity, I actually sent him a Fortnums hamper to show my appreciation. Such is female socialisation in the 21st Century.” Harvey Weinstein’s victims were famously photographed grinning with him at parties.
The #MeToo movement has often been accused of disrespecting due process. Yet last week we saw a woman vindicated by an established process, and still denied justice when the Lords refused to pass a sanction against Lester on the grounds that it doubted the results of its own process.
Peer after peer turned up in the Lords on Thursday to swear that they had known Lester for donkey’s years and that he wouldn’t harm a fly. In court, an admission of lifelong friendship with the accused would immediately lead a juror or adjudicator to be recused from the case. Only in the House of Lords, it seems, does being a mate of the man in the dock particularly qualify a chap to try his case.
Many in the Lords were concerned that this case had been tried “on the balance of probabilities”, instead of “beyond reasonable doubt”. But the former is the civil law standard used in any employment tribunal: Lester was facing suspension from a job, not a jail sentence. In rejecting that standard of proof, the Lords has shown that it expects to be held to lower professional standards than any other place of employment. This cannot be right. If the Lords feels its own procedures are not fit for purpose, it must accept that modernisation is likely to be tougher, not easier on it. The Lords should be careful what it wishes for.
When the #MeToo movement hit Westminster last year, some didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Those of us who had put our names to complaints of sexual harassment were presented as over-privileged women operating in elite institutions: if we were miffed by the odd indecent proposal, or the occasional lunge from a politician, perhaps we needed an education in real suffering.
No one can similarly accuse Jasvinder Sanghera of being sheltered when it comes to sexual violence. At 14 she ran away from home to escape a forced marriage, sleeping rough at first. Her sister Robina was less lucky. At the age of 24, Robina fatally set herself on fire after being told the family would disown her if she walked out on her husband’s physical violence. Since her sister’s death, Sanghera has spent 25 years campaigning against sexual abuse in traditional communities. Her charity, Karma Nirvana, helped make forced marriage overseas a criminal offence.
Last week, Sanghera outed herself as the woman who had made a complaint of sexual harassment against the Lib Dem peer Lord Lester. She would have felt like a “phoney”, she says, if she had continued campaigning against sexual violence in the family while allegedly tolerating harassment in the workplace.
Sanghera claimed that, while lending his support to her work, Lester had groped and harassed her and eventually promised: “If you sleep with me I will make you a baroness within a year”. He allegedly threatened to retaliate when she refused. Lester strongly denies all the allegations, though an investigation by the Lords’ commissioner for standards found against him. That investigation has since been scrutinised by two committee reviews, both of which again found against Lester. Overall, two law lords, two former lord chancellors, the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and 15 other peers have examined the case and ruled in Sanghera’s favour. But according to Lester’s friends in the House of Lords, this isn’t good enough.
As soon as the last appeal failed, Lord Pannick, a respected QC who is a close friend and supporter of Lester’s, launched a media campaign to discredit the investigation process in which he had just participated – including making the astonishing claim that Lester should have been allowed personally to cross-examine a woman who had accused him of sexual assault. Pannick’s campaign against Sanghera’s credibility read like a textbook case of establishment mobilisation: a column in the Times, where he is a regular columnist, and an appearance on the Today programme, where he called Sanghera “vague and contradictory”. There are, he alleges, errors or discrepancies in her memory. No doubt there are, at a distance of 12 years. But crucially, six witnesses gave evidence that Sanghera had confided in them about the alleged harassment at the time.
In his newspaper column and on the radio, Pannick drew our attention to a friendly note that Sanghera had inscribed to Lester in a copy of her book, after the key incident. Yet on neither occasion did Pannick acknowledge that Sanghera had been heavily questioned by the commissioner on this point, as she had been on every “challenge” made by Lester’s team. Sanghera’s side of the story is that Lester had requested the inscription at a large public setting “at the front of the queue of around 100 people”. She was still reliant on Lester’s help for her policy campaigns. She repeatedly told friends at the time that she still felt uncomfortable. But from Pannick’s media interventions, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a smoking gun that had never been put to Sanghera in the investigation.
It is profoundly depressing that after a year of public discussion about sexual harassment, educated men still claim not to understand the pressure women feel to show harassers that there are no “hard feelings” . A female barrister at Pannick’s own chambers had the guts to point this out on Twitter, writing last week that: “I was sexually harassed by a Crown Court judge whom I spent a week work shadowing. At the end of the week I not only thanked him profusely for the opportunity, I actually sent him a Fortnums hamper to show my appreciation. Such is female socialisation in the 21st Century.” Harvey Weinstein’s victims were famously photographed grinning with him at parties.
The #MeToo movement has often been accused of disrespecting due process. Yet last week we saw a woman vindicated by an established process, and still denied justice when the Lords refused to pass a sanction against Lester on the grounds that it doubted the results of its own process.
Peer after peer turned up in the Lords on Thursday to swear that they had known Lester for donkey’s years and that he wouldn’t harm a fly. In court, an admission of lifelong friendship with the accused would immediately lead a juror or adjudicator to be recused from the case. Only in the House of Lords, it seems, does being a mate of the man in the dock particularly qualify a chap to try his case.
Many in the Lords were concerned that this case had been tried “on the balance of probabilities”, instead of “beyond reasonable doubt”. But the former is the civil law standard used in any employment tribunal: Lester was facing suspension from a job, not a jail sentence. In rejecting that standard of proof, the Lords has shown that it expects to be held to lower professional standards than any other place of employment. This cannot be right. If the Lords feels its own procedures are not fit for purpose, it must accept that modernisation is likely to be tougher, not easier on it. The Lords should be careful what it wishes for.
Sunday 18 November 2018
Thursday 15 November 2018
Ease of Doing Business - How Dena Bank, CIBIL Harass Ordinary Indians
By Giffenman
India may have climbed the global scale in 'Ease of Doing Business'. But this letter below shows the extent of harassment a small Gujarati businessman, domiciled in India, faced from Dena Bank and CIBIL as he tried to run his business and educate his daughter with a non delivered educational loan.
The case in a nutshell:
Vipul Vora took a business loan from Dena Bank which was repaid in full. However Dena Bank held on to the ownership documents.
Vipul Vora's daughter took an educational loan to be paid directly to the college his daughter was studying in abroad. The loan never reached the daughter's college. Dena Bank insisted that Vipul Vora should repay the non-delivered loan amount. To coerce him to pay up the educational loan Dena Bank impounded the business documents used as collateral in the earlier business loan.
CIBIL has used the Dena Bank's version of events to lower Vipul Vora's credit rating causing him great monetary and emotional distress.
Vipul Vora has been paralysed as he cannot grow his business without the impounded ownership documents and with no hope of the case being easily resolved.
------ Copy of Legal Notice sent by Vipul Vora to Dena Bank and CIBIL (Sic)
RVD/OG/MD ___October, 2018
To,
1. The Chief Manager,
Dena Bank,
Vashi Sector 19 Branch,
K-34, Masala Market,
APMC Market – II, Vashi,
Navi Mumbai 400705.
2. The Zonal Manager
Dena Bank, Zonal Office,
272 Amrut Industries, Gokhale Road
Opposite Gokul Society Bus Stop,
Gokul Nagar, Thane West 400 602
3. The General Manager
Mr. Sanjeev Dhobal
Dena Bank, 5th Floor,
C-10, Dena Bank Building,
G block, Band BKC, Bandra East,
Mumbai 400 051.
4. TransUnion CIBIL Limited
(Formerly: Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited)
One Indiabulls Centre, Tower 2A, 19th Floor, Senapati Bapat Marg, Elphinstone Road, Mumbai - 400 013.
Dear Sirs,
Sub: Deficiency in service, loss of reputation and claim for damages
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are concerned for our clients Mrs. Jagruti Vipul Vora and Mr. Vipul Vora and Ms. Shayali Vora, all residing at E-38, 1:2 Shanti Niketan CHS, Sector 4, Nerul – 400 706, who have instructed us to address to you as under:-
1. Our clients state as under:
a. Our client Ms. Shayali Vora was at all material times in or about 2010 to 2016 pursuing her M.B.B.S. course through Crimea State Medical University, Ukraine[Till 2014] and then Federal Medical University, Russia. (“the University”);
b. On account of annexation of Crimea by Russia in or about 2014, Crimea came under the control of Russia and consequently the University was at that material time then on May 2016 is governed by the laws of Russia;
c. Our client Ms. Shayali Vora received an invitation letter from the Crimea State Medical University for completing her 12 semester MBBS course with the Crimea State Medical University on or about September 2010;
d. Our client Ms. Shayali Vora(“the Borrower”) applied to you No. 1 for granting her an Education Loan of Rs.1,95,000/- (Rupees One Lakh Ninety Five Thousand Only)in order to enable her to complete her final semester at the Federal Medical University, Russia which was then governed by the laws of Russia;
e. The Borrower’s application for an Educational Loan was sanctioned by you No. 1 under the DENA VIDYALAXMI LOAN SCHEME. The Borrower had to leave for the University on September 2015 and you No. 1 insisted that in order to pay the amount of the Educational Loan to the University, the Borrower would have to execute a DENA VIDYALAXMI LOAN AGREEMENT (“Loan Agreement”) with you. You handed over a printed standard form of the Loan Agreement to the Borrower, who only signed without filling in the blanks in the Loan Agreement including the date of the Loan Agreement. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora handed over to you the signed copy of the Loan Agreement and your representatives promised Mr. Vipul Vora that they would fill in the blanks in the Loan Agreement in terms of the application of the Borrower and thereafter provide a copy of it to our clients. The Borrower was required to report to the University on or before 15th September 2015 and therefore she left India on 12th September 2015;
f. After constant follow up, your representatives provided to our client Mr. Vipul Vora copy of the Loan Agreement. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora noticed that the date of the Loan Agreement signed by the Borrower was 6th December 2015. Our clients were shocked and surprised to see that your representatives had inserted a sum of Rs.2,35,000/- instead of Rs.1,95,000/- as the amount of loan sought by the Borrower in the Loan Agreement signed by the Borrower. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora immediately brought the above mistake of the amount in the Loan Agreement to the notice of your representatives, however, your representatives informed him that they could not lend a small amount for educational loan to the Borrower as it was not commercially feasible. Our clients required the loan amount and in view thereof did not raise any issue at that time;
g. Our clients submit that while applying for the Education Loan, the Borrower was asked to fill A2 Form, as per Crimea State Medical University as indicated in their invitation letter and the Borrower pointed it out to the representatives of you No. 1., Before filling Form A2, our clients informed the representatives of you No. 1 about the sanctions by the USA against Russia and Crimea territories under the control of Russia which included non-transfer of US dollars to the above mentioned Region. Our clients also informed your representative No. 1 that Crimea, Ukraine where the University was located is under the control of Russia and that payment could not be made in US dollars. In view of the aforesaid our clients requested you No. 1 to transfer the Educational Loan Amount either in Russian currency or Indian currency to the Borrower’s savings account so that the Borrower can withdraw the same from ATM in Russia Main Land and pay her fees;
h. On and after 4th January 2016, our client Mr. Vipul Vora enquired with you No. 1 regarding the status of the transfer of the loan amount to the University. Your representative No. 1 informed him that the loan amount is being processed. Finally, in or about 5th January 2016, your representatives No. 1 informed our client Mr. Vipul Vora that they had Processed the Transfer through their associate Bank Citibank to pay the loan amount to the University in US Dollars through Bank of New York Mellon, New York[ Diversion of Funds other then the intended Purpose as per Indian Law, Clause 9 of Agreement, as loan was applied as per the Indian Laws] and that in terms of the international process of the transfer of US Dollars the loan amount required the License of the OFAC, US Treasury, USA. Bank of New York Mellon had stopped the transfer to the University under the instructions of OFAC Treasury, USA on account of the sanctions by USA against Russia and made Fixed Deposit in the name Of DENA BANK, Sender Bank.;
i. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora was shocked and surprised at the aforesaid grossly negligent conduct of your representative No. 1 (which they termed it as erroneous). He asked your representatives No. 1 about the manner in which you No. 1 intended to get back the loan amount to which you replied that you were considering applying for a license to OFAC Treasury, USA to get the refund of the loan amount. It has been over 2years 9 months since the grossly negligent transfer of public funds of Bank Loan by your representatives No. 1 to the USA, but you have not taken any steps to get the loan amount back, save and except to harass our clients as stated in sub-paragraph k. below;
j. In view of the aforesaid shocking disclosure made by you No. 1 about the non-transfer of the loan amount to the University, our clients had no option but to pay to the University from their own funds after taking a gold loan from Greater Bank;
k. Instead of obtaining refund from the USA of the loan amount negligently transferred by you No. 1, your representatives No. 1 started demanding payment of the loan amount from our client. Our clients informed you No. 1 that they were not liable to pay to you the loan amount, since the Loan Agreement was not honoured by you by paying the loan amount to the University[Agreement Clause No.8B], however, your representatives kept on harassing our clients. Your representatives No. 1 illegally and unauthorized withheld the securities provided in a Term Loan Account granted by you No. 1 to a Partnership Firm “Sai Pharma” (“the Firm”) in which our client Mr. Vipul Vora was a partner even though the Term Loan had been fully paid by the Firm;
l. On account of your illegal tactics aforesaid, the Borrower informed to OFAC Treasury, USA, for the release License[ Application made by Ms. Shayali Vora on 7th January 2016] to release the loan amount along with the Swift Report and also bought to the notice of OFAC Treasury, USA the above facts, which in turn led to conversion of the loan amount into commercial category and the License application was rejected;
m. After constant follow up and requests by our client Mr. Vipul Vora to your representatives, you No.1 informed our clients that you had in June 2018 finally applied to OFAC Treasury, USA, for a License for release of the loan amount from Bank of New York Mellon, USA. You also returned the securities of the Firm to the Firm which had been illegally and unauthorized withheld along with the funds in Sai Pharma and Vipul Vora’s Account, which were closed on 6th June 2017 by you No. 1;
n. Not satisfied with the shocking ordeal you had put our clients to, you No.1informed No.4that our clients were loan defaulters and consequently No. 4 even with the knowledge[By personal Visits to the Office and Mail Communications] of the above events have lowered the credit ratings of our clients. The aforesaid conduct of you No. 1 was malicious and made with the deliberate intention to harm the financial credit worthiness of our clients with No. 4 as also their reputation in society;
o. Our clients state that you No. 1 were grossly negligent in transferring the loan amount by US Dollars. As a banker you were aware or ought to have been aware that US Dollars could not have been transferred to the University on account of the sanctions of the USA against Russia. You were informed by our clients of the fact that US Dollars could not be transferred to the University and yet you did not pay heed to the warning and transferred the loan amount by US Dollars.
p. Our clients state that for about two years you did not take any steps to obtain refund of the loan amount from the USA. Your conduct is blameworthy in the sense that you were unconcerned about the public money of Indian Bank lying in the USA.
q. Our clients state that you illegally and unauthorised withheld the securities of the Firm (in which our client Mr. Vipul Vora is a partner) in spite of the fact that all the payments under the Term Loan granted by you to the Firm had been made to you and the account was clean and clear, in order to pressurise our clients to pay to you the loan amount even though you had not performed your promise under the Loan Agreement.
Our clients state that you No. 1 have defamed them by giving wrong and false information to No. 4 about our clients being loan defaulters and due to which No. 4 has lowered the credit ratings of our clients and Transmitted Electronically wrong information to Various Financial Institutions;
s. Our clients state that you No. 1 are a public sector bank. Public money is parked in your bank. You are required to utilize public money deposited with you for the welfare of society. You are required to act with utmost care and caution in carrying on your duties. Last but not the least, you required to act honestly and with integrity in dealing with your account holders, creditors including your borrowers and other stake holders. Our clients further submit that it has pained them immensely to be associated with you not to mention the losses, mental agony and harassment that have been caused to them.
2. In the circumstances aforesaid:-
(a) Our clients hereby request you No. 4, to remove the information provided to you No. 4 by No. 1 in respect of our clients’ being “loan defaulters” of No. 1, from your website and publish the correct CIBIL ratings of our clients on your website and, if you so desire No. 4, our clients are prepared to provide to you any information or document with regard to the above; and
(b) Call upon you No. 1 to pay to our clients individually and to company a sum of Rs. 5,00,00,000/- for breach of contract, loss, gross negligence, defamation, mental agony and harassment among other things within 15 days from the date of receipt of this notice by you, failing which our clients shall be constrained to adopt such legal proceedings against you as they may be advised at your entire risk as to the costs and consequences, which please note.
Yours faithfully,
Malvi Ranchoddas & Co.
Partner
--------End of letter.
India may have climbed the global scale in 'Ease of Doing Business'. But this letter below shows the extent of harassment a small Gujarati businessman, domiciled in India, faced from Dena Bank and CIBIL as he tried to run his business and educate his daughter with a non delivered educational loan.
The case in a nutshell:
Vipul Vora took a business loan from Dena Bank which was repaid in full. However Dena Bank held on to the ownership documents.
Vipul Vora's daughter took an educational loan to be paid directly to the college his daughter was studying in abroad. The loan never reached the daughter's college. Dena Bank insisted that Vipul Vora should repay the non-delivered loan amount. To coerce him to pay up the educational loan Dena Bank impounded the business documents used as collateral in the earlier business loan.
CIBIL has used the Dena Bank's version of events to lower Vipul Vora's credit rating causing him great monetary and emotional distress.
Vipul Vora has been paralysed as he cannot grow his business without the impounded ownership documents and with no hope of the case being easily resolved.
------ Copy of Legal Notice sent by Vipul Vora to Dena Bank and CIBIL (Sic)
RVD/OG/MD ___October, 2018
To,
1. The Chief Manager,
Dena Bank,
Vashi Sector 19 Branch,
K-34, Masala Market,
APMC Market – II, Vashi,
Navi Mumbai 400705.
2. The Zonal Manager
Dena Bank, Zonal Office,
272 Amrut Industries, Gokhale Road
Opposite Gokul Society Bus Stop,
Gokul Nagar, Thane West 400 602
3. The General Manager
Mr. Sanjeev Dhobal
Dena Bank, 5th Floor,
C-10, Dena Bank Building,
G block, Band BKC, Bandra East,
Mumbai 400 051.
4. TransUnion CIBIL Limited
(Formerly: Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited)
One Indiabulls Centre, Tower 2A, 19th Floor, Senapati Bapat Marg, Elphinstone Road, Mumbai - 400 013.
Dear Sirs,
Sub: Deficiency in service, loss of reputation and claim for damages
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are concerned for our clients Mrs. Jagruti Vipul Vora and Mr. Vipul Vora and Ms. Shayali Vora, all residing at E-38, 1:2 Shanti Niketan CHS, Sector 4, Nerul – 400 706, who have instructed us to address to you as under:-
1. Our clients state as under:
a. Our client Ms. Shayali Vora was at all material times in or about 2010 to 2016 pursuing her M.B.B.S. course through Crimea State Medical University, Ukraine[Till 2014] and then Federal Medical University, Russia. (“the University”);
b. On account of annexation of Crimea by Russia in or about 2014, Crimea came under the control of Russia and consequently the University was at that material time then on May 2016 is governed by the laws of Russia;
c. Our client Ms. Shayali Vora received an invitation letter from the Crimea State Medical University for completing her 12 semester MBBS course with the Crimea State Medical University on or about September 2010;
d. Our client Ms. Shayali Vora(“the Borrower”) applied to you No. 1 for granting her an Education Loan of Rs.1,95,000/- (Rupees One Lakh Ninety Five Thousand Only)in order to enable her to complete her final semester at the Federal Medical University, Russia which was then governed by the laws of Russia;
e. The Borrower’s application for an Educational Loan was sanctioned by you No. 1 under the DENA VIDYALAXMI LOAN SCHEME. The Borrower had to leave for the University on September 2015 and you No. 1 insisted that in order to pay the amount of the Educational Loan to the University, the Borrower would have to execute a DENA VIDYALAXMI LOAN AGREEMENT (“Loan Agreement”) with you. You handed over a printed standard form of the Loan Agreement to the Borrower, who only signed without filling in the blanks in the Loan Agreement including the date of the Loan Agreement. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora handed over to you the signed copy of the Loan Agreement and your representatives promised Mr. Vipul Vora that they would fill in the blanks in the Loan Agreement in terms of the application of the Borrower and thereafter provide a copy of it to our clients. The Borrower was required to report to the University on or before 15th September 2015 and therefore she left India on 12th September 2015;
f. After constant follow up, your representatives provided to our client Mr. Vipul Vora copy of the Loan Agreement. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora noticed that the date of the Loan Agreement signed by the Borrower was 6th December 2015. Our clients were shocked and surprised to see that your representatives had inserted a sum of Rs.2,35,000/- instead of Rs.1,95,000/- as the amount of loan sought by the Borrower in the Loan Agreement signed by the Borrower. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora immediately brought the above mistake of the amount in the Loan Agreement to the notice of your representatives, however, your representatives informed him that they could not lend a small amount for educational loan to the Borrower as it was not commercially feasible. Our clients required the loan amount and in view thereof did not raise any issue at that time;
g. Our clients submit that while applying for the Education Loan, the Borrower was asked to fill A2 Form, as per Crimea State Medical University as indicated in their invitation letter and the Borrower pointed it out to the representatives of you No. 1., Before filling Form A2, our clients informed the representatives of you No. 1 about the sanctions by the USA against Russia and Crimea territories under the control of Russia which included non-transfer of US dollars to the above mentioned Region. Our clients also informed your representative No. 1 that Crimea, Ukraine where the University was located is under the control of Russia and that payment could not be made in US dollars. In view of the aforesaid our clients requested you No. 1 to transfer the Educational Loan Amount either in Russian currency or Indian currency to the Borrower’s savings account so that the Borrower can withdraw the same from ATM in Russia Main Land and pay her fees;
h. On and after 4th January 2016, our client Mr. Vipul Vora enquired with you No. 1 regarding the status of the transfer of the loan amount to the University. Your representative No. 1 informed him that the loan amount is being processed. Finally, in or about 5th January 2016, your representatives No. 1 informed our client Mr. Vipul Vora that they had Processed the Transfer through their associate Bank Citibank to pay the loan amount to the University in US Dollars through Bank of New York Mellon, New York[ Diversion of Funds other then the intended Purpose as per Indian Law, Clause 9 of Agreement, as loan was applied as per the Indian Laws] and that in terms of the international process of the transfer of US Dollars the loan amount required the License of the OFAC, US Treasury, USA. Bank of New York Mellon had stopped the transfer to the University under the instructions of OFAC Treasury, USA on account of the sanctions by USA against Russia and made Fixed Deposit in the name Of DENA BANK, Sender Bank.;
i. Our client Mr. Vipul Vora was shocked and surprised at the aforesaid grossly negligent conduct of your representative No. 1 (which they termed it as erroneous). He asked your representatives No. 1 about the manner in which you No. 1 intended to get back the loan amount to which you replied that you were considering applying for a license to OFAC Treasury, USA to get the refund of the loan amount. It has been over 2years 9 months since the grossly negligent transfer of public funds of Bank Loan by your representatives No. 1 to the USA, but you have not taken any steps to get the loan amount back, save and except to harass our clients as stated in sub-paragraph k. below;
j. In view of the aforesaid shocking disclosure made by you No. 1 about the non-transfer of the loan amount to the University, our clients had no option but to pay to the University from their own funds after taking a gold loan from Greater Bank;
k. Instead of obtaining refund from the USA of the loan amount negligently transferred by you No. 1, your representatives No. 1 started demanding payment of the loan amount from our client. Our clients informed you No. 1 that they were not liable to pay to you the loan amount, since the Loan Agreement was not honoured by you by paying the loan amount to the University[Agreement Clause No.8B], however, your representatives kept on harassing our clients. Your representatives No. 1 illegally and unauthorized withheld the securities provided in a Term Loan Account granted by you No. 1 to a Partnership Firm “Sai Pharma” (“the Firm”) in which our client Mr. Vipul Vora was a partner even though the Term Loan had been fully paid by the Firm;
l. On account of your illegal tactics aforesaid, the Borrower informed to OFAC Treasury, USA, for the release License[ Application made by Ms. Shayali Vora on 7th January 2016] to release the loan amount along with the Swift Report and also bought to the notice of OFAC Treasury, USA the above facts, which in turn led to conversion of the loan amount into commercial category and the License application was rejected;
m. After constant follow up and requests by our client Mr. Vipul Vora to your representatives, you No.1 informed our clients that you had in June 2018 finally applied to OFAC Treasury, USA, for a License for release of the loan amount from Bank of New York Mellon, USA. You also returned the securities of the Firm to the Firm which had been illegally and unauthorized withheld along with the funds in Sai Pharma and Vipul Vora’s Account, which were closed on 6th June 2017 by you No. 1;
n. Not satisfied with the shocking ordeal you had put our clients to, you No.1informed No.4that our clients were loan defaulters and consequently No. 4 even with the knowledge[By personal Visits to the Office and Mail Communications] of the above events have lowered the credit ratings of our clients. The aforesaid conduct of you No. 1 was malicious and made with the deliberate intention to harm the financial credit worthiness of our clients with No. 4 as also their reputation in society;
o. Our clients state that you No. 1 were grossly negligent in transferring the loan amount by US Dollars. As a banker you were aware or ought to have been aware that US Dollars could not have been transferred to the University on account of the sanctions of the USA against Russia. You were informed by our clients of the fact that US Dollars could not be transferred to the University and yet you did not pay heed to the warning and transferred the loan amount by US Dollars.
p. Our clients state that for about two years you did not take any steps to obtain refund of the loan amount from the USA. Your conduct is blameworthy in the sense that you were unconcerned about the public money of Indian Bank lying in the USA.
q. Our clients state that you illegally and unauthorised withheld the securities of the Firm (in which our client Mr. Vipul Vora is a partner) in spite of the fact that all the payments under the Term Loan granted by you to the Firm had been made to you and the account was clean and clear, in order to pressurise our clients to pay to you the loan amount even though you had not performed your promise under the Loan Agreement.
Our clients state that you No. 1 have defamed them by giving wrong and false information to No. 4 about our clients being loan defaulters and due to which No. 4 has lowered the credit ratings of our clients and Transmitted Electronically wrong information to Various Financial Institutions;
s. Our clients state that you No. 1 are a public sector bank. Public money is parked in your bank. You are required to utilize public money deposited with you for the welfare of society. You are required to act with utmost care and caution in carrying on your duties. Last but not the least, you required to act honestly and with integrity in dealing with your account holders, creditors including your borrowers and other stake holders. Our clients further submit that it has pained them immensely to be associated with you not to mention the losses, mental agony and harassment that have been caused to them.
2. In the circumstances aforesaid:-
(a) Our clients hereby request you No. 4, to remove the information provided to you No. 4 by No. 1 in respect of our clients’ being “loan defaulters” of No. 1, from your website and publish the correct CIBIL ratings of our clients on your website and, if you so desire No. 4, our clients are prepared to provide to you any information or document with regard to the above; and
(b) Call upon you No. 1 to pay to our clients individually and to company a sum of Rs. 5,00,00,000/- for breach of contract, loss, gross negligence, defamation, mental agony and harassment among other things within 15 days from the date of receipt of this notice by you, failing which our clients shall be constrained to adopt such legal proceedings against you as they may be advised at your entire risk as to the costs and consequences, which please note.
Yours faithfully,
Malvi Ranchoddas & Co.
Partner
--------End of letter.
Will UK house prices ever rise again?
The recent gains could turn out to be a huge historical anomaly writes Merryn Somerset Webb in The FT
If there is one thing that drives financial journalists in the UK to distraction it is celebrities. Every weekend the money pages of newspapers carry interviews with various semi-famous people asking them about how they invest. Every weekend the semi-famous people say they don’t invest in the stock market or save into a pension because it is too complicated. They invest in property instead. Buy houses, they say, and you have something “you can see”: You “know where you are with bricks and mortar”.
The problem with this is simple. You might think you know where you are with bricks and mortar. But the truth is that you probably don’t — unless you have a complete grasp of how population trends, interest rates and political priorities have shifted over the past century and how they might shift again over the next. Just because the period in which most of us have become adults has been one of almost nonstop property price growth does not mean that it makes sense to extrapolate that growth indefinitely. It might not.
The latest Deutsche Bank Long Term Asset Return Study (written by Jim Reid and his team of analysts) takes a proper look at the evidence. It turns out that fast-rising house prices in the UK are a relatively recent phenomenon. They have risen on average 3 per cent a year in inflation-adjusted terms since 1939 (a total of 834 per cent). But before that they mostly fell — 50 per cent in inflation-adjusted terms from 1290 to 1939. These data are obviously not precise — Reid points out that the housing market has changed beyond all recognition over the past 800 years and that the numbers have been collated using “many assumptions”. However, you get the general idea. Perhaps our celebrities should be spending less time assuming their financial future will be the same as their financial past, and more time asking two questions: What changed in the middle of the last century? And will it change back?
The answer to the first question brings us to demographics. The world began to change in 1796 when Edward Jenner introduced the first vaccine for smallpox (the major killer of the time) and so created a dramatic rise in life expectancy and the beginnings of a rise in the number of people in the world: the global population rose by a mere 0.17 per cent a year until 1820 but 0.98 per cent a year from then to 2000 (this rise was what allowed the industrial revolution to happen, by the way). However, it is the past 70 years — the ones most of us use as our map for the future — that have been genuinely dramatic: from 1950 to 2000 the global population more than doubled, from 2.5bn to around 6.1bn.
That has had all sorts of consequences — ones that have long looked mystifying if you don’t understand population but which have looked rather predictable if you do. If you had looked properly at birth rates in the G7 in the postwar period you would not have been surprised that inflation and unemployment rose in the 1970s as the baby boomers began to both “jostle for their first jobs” and to consume global resources on a huge scale, says Paul Hodges chairman of London-based strategy consultancy IeC.
You would have expected stock markets to start to boom in the 1980s as those same boomers moved into their thirties and forties and started to pour cash into investments to finance their retirements. And you surely would have known that all those babies growing up in the affluent stability of the postwar world would want to form their own households and would be encouraged by rising global affluence to want to do so in bigger and better houses than their parents. You might also have noted the political power of the boomers and guessed that the regulatory environment would be shaped to suit them — think tax relief on mortgage payments and no capital gains tax on the sale of primary homes in the UK, for example. And so it began. Demand pushed up prices — and pushed them up even more in low-supply Britain than elsewhere.
As prices rose baby boomers figured that homes looked like a hot tip of an investment and, enabled by the rise of the fiat money system (the final collapse of any link to the dollar to gold in 1971 meant money supply was able to rise with the population), bought more. Nearly half the 2.5m buy-to-let investors in the UK now say they are “pension pot” investors. They own one house to live in and another as an investment. Perhaps, says Reid, “housing is the ultimate population-sensitive asset”. “As a small island with heavy control over new home building, high population growth but limited supply has put massive upward pressure on prices over the last several decades.”
He is right of course. But it is worth noting that the whole thing could never have happened without the full support of the central banks. One of the consequences of population growth was the abolition of a formal connection between currencies and gold, something that has allowed governments and central banks to print money and shift interest rates around as they like. That, in turn, has given us a long period of very low interest rates — which have shoved a rocket booster under house prices. In the UK, the actual monthly cost of buying a home fell dramatically after the financial crisis and has been more or less flat for several years. Even as the price of houses has risen, the fall in interest rates has kept the mortgage cost of buying much the same.
On to the second question: will this all change back? Is it possible that we might be moving into an age of static to falling house prices? It is. Listen to the pessimists and you might think the global population will soon double again. But the rate of growth peaked long ago (in 1968 at just over 2 per cent a year). It is now down to more like 1 per cent. The main driver behind the extraordinary past 70 years is receding: the baby boomers are more likely now to be sellers than buyers. You could argue that the attractiveness of the UK as a place to live means our population will rise indefinitely and so will property prices — but to do so you would have to pile a lot of assumptions on top of each other: that the UK remains desirable; that it remains desirable enough that people are happy to pay a hefty premium for a house in it; and that it remains open to high levels of immigration.
At the same time interest rates are beginning to drift up again. Jim Reid notes that the 1950-2000 period has been “like no other in human or financial history in terms of population growth, economic growth, inflation or asset prices”. It may stay that way.
Worse (for those who want house prices to rise forever), legislation is on the turn. In the UK, the fast rise in house prices has created a class of winners and another of losers. The losers have had enough — and our cash-strapped government is now on their side.
So second-homebuyers have been hit with council tax rises and an additional rate of stamp duty (an extra three percentage points). Buy-to-let investors have seen a sharp reduction in the scope of the tax relief available to them on their rental income as well as a shift in power back towards tenants (in Scotland in particular), stricter affordability requirements on their mortgage applications and a raft of new energy efficiency rules and licensing laws. They also pay capital gains tax at 28 per cent when they sell their properties (it is 20 per cent on everything else). There are also calls for new wealth taxes on all UK property — or sharp rises to council taxes at the top end. All four major UK parties are now showing interest in land value taxes and in scrapping what tax exemptions there are left for property owners.
The recent budget didn’t have much in it, but space was found for two measures — a cut in the capital gains tax relief on houses that were once main residences, and a consultation on a 1 per cent surcharge for non-UK residents buying UK property. It doesn’t look good does it?
So when will the shift to what was normal in the housing market 80 years ago begin? You could argue (and Hodges does) that it began in 2000 as the baby boomers started to shift down — and that the boom since 2009 has been a last gasp of a soon-to-slow market. With the Brexit fog all about us and fallout from the financial crisis still clearing, it is hard to tell what is causing what. But look to London and that makes some sense: prime London house and flat prices are down 30 and 25 per cent, respectively, since their peak several years ago and most data now show nationwide prices rising slightly less than inflation.
There’ll be volatility here for a while — a post-Brexit bounce seems inevitable, for example, and a bout of consumer price inflation is likely over the next decade (you can see it coming in rising wages), something that might make holding real assets such as property not the worst idea in the world. But if prices revert to very long-term means, the period in which all our celebrities have made their property fortunes is going to turn out to have been a huge historical anomaly. I wonder what the ones who are being asked “property or pension” in 30 years will say.
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