Finance company takes loan widow for a Rs 1.25 lakh ride

With the money and the documents in their grasp, the company did a volte-face. “Their sudden rude behaviour and warnings from friends made us suspect that something was wrong,” she reveals. Nervous, Nair began calling them regularly but “all they kept telling me was that the manager Seth was away and the loan would arrive in 10 days”.

Fed up with a two-week run-around and desperate for her money and the papers for the flat, Nair told them she had changed her mind about the loan and wanted both back. After much persuasion, they said they would pay her, but kept postponing the date. Finally, she was asked to send someone to collect the money on May 5, 1999. “I was given a cheque for Rs 85,000 and told that the balance would be paid in 15 days. I was also forced to sign saying that a final settlement of Rs 85,000 have been made,” she told Newsline.

Their relief was short-lived as the cheque bounced. Though she was asked to deposit the cheque on two more occasions, it bounced repeatedly. Over the telephone, the manager asked her to return the cheque but she refused. “Now I am afraid that the flat’s original documents could be misused. Vijaya Corporation has been ruthlessly duping ordinary people who cannot stand up against it,” she says hopelessly.

On August 1, 1999, she wrote a letter to the deputy comissioner of police, Zone 1, who advised her to approach the L T Marg police station, where a complaint was filed. She submitted her complaint to Sub-Inspector Adhav, who “told me to make a compromise on the Rs 1 lakh,” Nair reveals. Later, when she tried to contact him, he kept making excuses as to why he couldn’t meet her. “Four or five times a month I used to sit from morning to evening at the police station in wait of good news. At the day’s end they used to tell me that they couldn’t nab the culprits,” she says, angrily.

When Newsline spoke to Senior Inspector Jaspal Singh at the L T Marg police station he said: “The police can’t interfere in the matter as the case is still pending in the civil court of law.”

Soon after the case came up for hearing in court for the first time, company owner Vijaya Patil visited her home 15 days later. She says he told her to “settle the matter” for Rs 60,000. When she refused, he said it was no use looking to the law as he knew powerful people on the force.

Patil told Newsline: “I don’t know about the papers for her flat and though I tried to settle the matter, we couldn’t come to a compromise.”

Sources in ther finance industry say that there are at least 50 companies with dubious credentials operating in South Mumbai. Most are not even registered with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as a non-banking finance company, which is mandatory for firms lending money against such collaterals. They say the RBI too has done little by way of eliminating these companies and to educate the people, who do not check their credentials.