The conclusion of the Lahoti Committee
First heard in the Supreme Court of India on the 9th September 2011, Solomon James’ writ 383 is a petition signed by 115 panelists demanding the money owed to them by Speak Asia.
Currently castrated by multiple criminal investigations being held into the company, Speak Asia stopped paying its members in May of this year, before transferring over a hundred million USD out of India shortly after.
This money, which belonged to the Speak Asia’s members, hasn’t been seen since it was transferred out of India.
As the James writ 383 petition progressed in the Supreme Court, eventually the court initiated the formation of the Lahoti Committee. Led by former Chief Justice Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, the court ordered that the Lahoti Committee ‘explore the possibility of an amicable settlement between the parties‘.
Since May, all banks in India have been actively blocking any official transfers of money from Speak Asia’s known bank accounts into India. These banks are completely aware of the criminal investigations into Speak Asia and are not willing to shoulder the liability should the company be found guilty of fraud upon conclusion of said investigations.
To date, this has not changed. Thus upon hearing about the formation of the Lahoti Committee I surmised as much, charging that the Lahoti Committee was in all probability, a procedural waste of time.
Following the first Lahoti Committee meeting in November, subsequent meetings have been held in secret, with most finer details of the discussion being kept from members of the public and Speak Asia’s own members.
One detail of the Committee meetings that has leaked out however (proof evident that those involved are only leaking information that benefits them), is that the EOW (the main authoritative body investigating Speak Asia) have not been present.
That changed last Monday when it was widely reported (more proof that those attending will only leak information that benefits them), that the EOW did indeed attend.
If one was to believe Speak Asia’s senior panelists, this attendance would be a good thing and somehow translates into imminent ‘victory for Speak Asia’.
How?
Don’t ask me, I have no idea.
To date the EOW has publicly charged that Speak Asia is the biggest MLM fraud they have ever investigated, and currently hold the two most senior publicly known management figures of Speak Asia, Melvin Crasto and Ashish Dandekar, under arrest.
Just yesterday a court denied Ashish Dandekar bail again, purely on the basis that evidence was presented in court showing that he was working for Speak Asia in a management capacity.
Despite this however, for some reason Speak Asia’s senior panelists believe the EOW’s involvement in the Lahoti Committee can only spell a positive outcome for the company.
Leave alone the fact that the Lahoti Committee was only ever charged with facilitating a dialogue between Speak Asia and its panelists and has nothing to do with the criminal investigation open into the company, nor its business operations.
As far as the EOW’s involvement in the Lahoti Committee goes, here’s what we know thus far;
Justice Lahoti held a mediation meeting at the India International Centre in New Delhi on 19.12.2011 at 6 pm.
In attendance were an investigating officer of EOW along with the Special Public Prosecutor Gharat.
The EOW has submitted their say about the criminal side of the ongoing investigation and that the petitioners’ credentials need to be checked.
Whether any new information other than the EOW believe Speak Asia to be the biggest MLM fraud they’ve ever seen, or that they are actively hunting down what Speak Asia management are left in India remains at this stage unknown. But by and large, it’s extremely doubtful the EOW had anything positive to say about Speak Asia.
With their investigation clearly ongoing, the point I made back on November 14th about the Lahoti Committee being at the mercy of the criminal investigations still stands.
The mention by the EOW that the petitioner’s credentials need to be checked was a bit unexpected, and to be honest I’m not entirely sure what it means.
When Melvin Crasto was arrested, AISPA insisted he was just a panelist, despite the fact it was later revealed he’d taken over $43,000 USD in kickbacks from Speak Asia since the company effectively shut down.
When Ashish Dandekar was arrested, senior panelists immediately announced that the EOW had arrested a simple Regional Manager of Speak Asia who knew nothing. Since then the EOW has managed to present evidence convincing enough in court to prove that Dandekar has been operating as effective COO of Speak Asia for some time, and subsequently a judge has repeatedly denied him bail for his involvement in the scam.
In stating that the petitioner’s credentials need to be checked, are the EOW subtly suggesting that the information they have gleaned from Crasto and Dandekar suggests that some of the 114 panelists signed on the James writ are not just simple panelists?
And if not, then what exactly are they hinting at?
As the EOW’s criminal investigation into Speak Asia continues, following the Lahoti Committee’s Monday meeting it was confirmed by AISPA’s Ashok Bahirwani that the Monday meeting was the conclusion of the Lahoti Committee mediation process.
That is to say, what happens next is that Lahoti looks at the mediation process as a whole, puts down his recommendations into a report and submits it to the Supreme Court for review.
General consensus amongst Speak Asia’s senior panelists seems to be that this will mean payments restarting soon and some even go so far to suggest that Lahoti will even recommend the restart of business operations.
Whilst the latter is completely outside of the scope of the Lahoti Committee itself, the former is presented with absolutely no basis whatsoever.
By all appearances the EOW have done what I thought they’d do, rock up to the committee, state that their investigation was ongoing and leave. Given that all involved in the Lahoti Committee already knew that, in short: a waste of their time.
Looking forward after Lahoti has submitted his report the Supreme Court will take a look at it and then set a future hearing date to make their decision known.
AISPA’s Bahirwani estimates this to be in early January, but until the Court actually sets a date, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Let me see if I get what you *think* EOW told the Lahoti committee…
“We suspect some of the panelists supposedly represented here may in fact be puppetmasters running the show, and we need more time to sort them out.”
Would that be about right?
That’s my interpretation of ‘the petitioners’ credentials need to be checked‘ yes.
Why else would they bring it up?
And it’s not the first time they’ve questioned the petitioners role in a case involving Speak Asia. As Andy pointed out earlier today, the EOW brought this up back in September too with AISPA.
Oz.,
Again you did it (giving the information of venue for the first time in Internet), hope you would have got the information directly from EOW officials.
You earlier said that Lahoti committee is mere waste of time and it won’t get complete in your previous artcile what you have posted.
But now you have written in this article as “The conclusion of Lahoti Committee”.
But still i trust, you are very strong in one point which is nobody is getting paid until the criminal proceedings are over. That is very important & valid point according to you, you should not change that point also in future. I feel there is possibility of paying to the panelists while criminal proceedings taking place simultaneously.
Let’s wait & see what is going to happen in coming days. But one thing is clear – the case is moving towards some twists and turns now..
Let us hope speak asia members gets their money back as soon as possible..
@Nithya
Did you even read the article?
1. Banks refuse to let Speak Asia transfer any money through India because of criminal investigations.
2. Supreme Court orders formation of Lahoti Committee to discuss what’s going on with payments.
3. EOW tell Lahoti Committee that they are still conducting their criminal investigation.
4. Lahoti submits report to court advising this.
5. Supreme Court learns nothing they didn’t already know. Payments still not possible till criminal investigations and any resulting legal action against Speak Asia is concluded.
Conclusion: The Lahoti Committee was a waste of time.
The banks are not permitting the transactions because they alone hold the liability of letting a ponzi scheme perpetuate (let us not forget the money owed to panelists that is not membership fees was earnt via an illegal ponzi scheme business model).
The Supreme Court cannot guarantee the non-liability of the banks in this regard, it’s too far fetched. The government would have to essentially grant a bank complete immunity to prosecution for aiding a scam they knew was under investigation, should Speak Asia be legally declared criminal at a later date as a result of the open criminal investigations into it.
Let me just emphasize that Oz’s point, about Lahoti committee being a waste of time, is a LOGICAL EXTRAPOLATION from the information available to the public.
There are a couple points going for it:
a) If Bahirwani have good news and such, he’d have released it already, as would all the other parties in the committee.
But instead, you have TOTAL SILENCE, except for ONE leak from Khoosla, who’s not actually a part of the committee!
b) Instead, you have “just trust us” messages posted in various places.
c) For days / weeks AISPA and various SAOL supporters have claimed that because EOW didn’t show they are “bound to win”
Now that EOW did show up (hah!) they STILL say they are bound to win BECAUSE EOW showed up. Is that even logical? Or just someone who’s used to “1984 by George Orwell” type mind control? (one moment is A vs. B, then suddenly it’s A vs. C, and everybody pretends it NEVER WAS A vs. B)
d) add it all together, and it’s pretty clear that EOW is NOT about to release any SAOL funds it froze (it kept on finding more, like in Crasto’s account!)
e) which logically leads to the next conclusion: that the Supreme Court will either adjourn the case until EOW’s criminal case against SAOL is resolved, or Supreme Court will invalidate the plaintiff’s status and reject the case outright. This is my speculation, of course.
If Crasto really was taking money from SAOL under the table, and in large amounts, how can he be a part of the party suing SAOL? And if Bahirwani doesn’t know about Crasto’s deal with SAOL, what ELSE doesn’t he know about? (Or maybe he does know? Hmmm…)
I don’t see how they plan to win this case, the “WRIT 383/11 Solomon Jemes & ORS”?
There IS possibe to separate some parts from other parts of a case. This is done in most cases if they contain different parts, like some civil parts and some criminal parts. But some parts in WRIT 383/11 doesn’t seem to be possible to separate from the criminal case.
A judgment from the Supreme Court in some parts will also violate certain rights, like the right to appeal to a higher court. The Supreme Court is simply not qualified to make a decision in some parts before the High Court has made their decision.
QUALIFIED
The Supreme Court should be qualified to rule in some specific parts of the case:
* Payment of money that hasn’t been involved in some criminal activities. This should also include transferring of money through the bank system – some of the money can be separated from the criminal case. This means money that is identifiable in some way or another, where it is possibe to identify the right owner. This also includes how payment can be solved.
* Some “Public Interest” issues, if money is seizable as tax or fines or if they belong to specific panelists or group(s) of panelists.
PARTLY QUALIFIED
The Supreme Court should normally avoid any interference with criminal investigation or the handling of the case in the lower court system.
* They may interfere with freezing of specific bank accounts, and separate this part from the criminal parts of the case.
* They may allow transfer of money in some specific parts, as “recovery of money” rather than “payment”.
* They shouldn’t allow any “payments” to any specific panelist or group of panelists. “Payment” may harm the interests of others.
NOT QUALIFIED
The Supreme Court should definitely not feel qualified to evaluate if a business model is legal or illegal, or to make any judgments whether the company can be allowed to continue or not – before the case is properly investigated and handled in the lower court system. Any such judgment will violate some basic rights, like the right to appeal a case to a higher court.
* they shouldn’t feel qualified to evaluate if members should be allowed to participate in SpeakAsia’s daily operations, due to similar reasons as above. Allowing members to continue to recruit even more members may harm the interests of other parts of the public. Doing fake surveys and being paid $20 per week isn’t within the interests of any panelist when the work is fake.
* they shouldn’t feel qualified to evaluate or allow any changes in the agreements between panelists and the company, like the new business plan. Each panelist will have different interests in this area, and the Supreme Court shouldn’t interfere with individual interests in a group of this size.
SOME SPECIFIC PROBLEMS
Some of the money frozen in India may be identifiable as belonging to some newly recruited panelists. The freezing of accounts was mostly related to franchisees, and parts of it may be possible to trace as payments from specific panelists.
I wonder how the courts will handle such issues? I would have protected the interests of these few panelists as long as they’re possible to identify, “some of the money in this account have recently been paid IN before we froze the account, and we do have the names of those who paid the money”.
I can’t see how SpeakAsia and “Solomon Jemes & ORS” have planned to convince the Supreme Court about some of the points?
The most questionable point is “Let SpeakAsia continue it’s operations, and let it’s members participate in it’s daily operations to support their livelihood”.
Paying large amounts for subscriptions and panels, doing fake work, most of the money sent to other countries? This doesn’t exactly sound like “Public Interest” for any country or population?
This business model makes parts of the population gradually become poorer, while a few becomes richer, with money transferred out of the country instead of into the country for the work done? There hasn’t been any real “exchange of values” involved here either, except for some “training” and “experience” in return for money.
I’ll believe the parties involved here (Solomon Jemes & Others, SpeakAsia, Haren Ventures) will have a hard time convincing any court about the legality of this business model, and why it should be allowed to continue. They should have a hard time convincing the average panelist, too.
So far the average panelist have only seen fake surveys done for non-existent clients. They shouldn’t be very interested in doing fake surveys or any other fake work, when they in reality doesn’t earn anything when they do the work.
Speak Asia submitt affidavits that detail business models they never used and James anr Ors just throw their support behind them (despite knowing full well the company never used such a business model).
If the EOW and Union of India pull them up on their lies, most likely the lawyers will claim this is what their clients requested they submit and well… Speak Asia’s management are in hiding and the money is already overseas so I suppose they’ve got nothing to lose by trying their luck at submittinbg affidavits riddled with errors.
Criminal accountability is sorely lacking on Speak Asia’s part in this case, which is why management are in hiding.
@Oz
Using the new business model in the WRIT 383/11 “Solomon Jemes & ORS” isn’t exactly “incorrect”. The WRIT is about civil matters, whether or not SpeakAsia can continue with business, and some different issues related to payments.
The business plan isn’t included as “proof” for how the business was designed or was operating earlier.
I’m trying to analyse specific parts of this WRIT to predict any possible outcome, and to better understand how the court system works. I’m also testing my own skills in analysing such matters.
The Supreme Court shouldn’t feel qualified to make a decision in some central parts of the WRIT, but they are qualified in other parts (specified earlier). I wonder whether they will make a partial decision in some parts, or if they will delay all decisions until they’re qualified in all parts?
“Qualified” means “being able to make any kind of decision without violating any basic rules”. They should be able to rule against a party or in favour of a party, based on the facts needed to make a decision.
I’m also very curious on how the court system will treat money in frozen accounts, if they will identify specific “owners” to some of the money, or if they will treat all money as “a pool of money”.
I’m also very curious if the court system will accept any kinds of “payments” from SpeakAsia to panelists. Most “payments” may violate the rights of some panelists, reducing their chances to recover their invested money.
Next date for the James case is 6th February, so guess we’ll have to see then.
Depending on the responses from the various parties that make up the Union of India, this could drag out for a long time.
Haven’t had any updates on the EOW criminal case in a while so that’s something to consider too. Bahirwani was dragged in for interrogation last week on three seperate occasions but he’s being very hush-hush about it.
Bahirwani continues to hide behind the ‘the matter is sub-judice’ excuse, which is amusing considering the EOW haven’t officially launched any court action themselves.