Press Release Summary = After the 4 years long struggle for the prestige at last Pushpa Lekhumal Tolani won the legal case against Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, and call a press conference to put forward her experience in in front of a common man, she said that people like us from sound and reputed family suffered to get the prestige back and what about a common man. In this Press conference which was held in Le Meridian New Delhi Pushpa Lekhumal Tolani’s husband Sonjoy Chatterjee explained how they suffered from the legal allegations. Here is the synopsis of the entire story in his own words
Press Release Body = After the 4 years long struggle for the prestige at last Pushpa Lekhumal Tolani won the legal case against Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, and call a press conference to put forward her experience in in front of a common man, she said that people like us from sound and reputed family suffered to get the prestige back and what about a common man. In this Press conference which was held in Le Meridian New Delhi Pushpa Lekhumal Tolani’s husband Sonjoy Chatterjee explained how they suffered from the legal allegations. Here is the synopsis of the entire story in his own words.
I would like to begin by my wife and I thanking you for coming here this evening, and to hear from us about our experience of our fight for justice. We fought this case in order to prove we were telling the truth, and more importantly to keep our prestige unblemished. Along the way we were required to make many sacrifices. But that is another story! For the record,The Press reported a seizure of jewellery brought into India by a NRI lady in November 2002. The DRI also let some trivial information be known to the Press that made us appear guilty even before the trial started. Due to our defence counsel not leading any evidence to prove to the ACMM that we were carrying our bonafide jewellery, we were convicted in September 2004. The press duly reported this event. As a result, we had no choice but to change our lawyers and fight for the truth. We filed our appeal against the conviction in the court of the Additional Sessions Judge in January 2005. It has taken us 4 years to prove we did not smuggle and that we were carrying our own personal jewellery. We have given you copies of the relevant court orders and a detailed statement about our experiences and thoughts we have about the whole experience in the accompanying CD. We hope you will now report this development.
In summary, The DRI misused information received, by alleging information received by them which said we were not going to declare the jewellery we were carrying. However, UK Customs have written to my lawyers stating that a MOU about mutual assistance was the only reason why some information was given to the Indian authorities. (We have given you a copy of that letter in this folder.) We felt the department and the Customs authorities intentionally misinterpreted and misapplied the rules that relate to personal effects of non-Indian passport holders in order to harass us. After receiving the adjudicating order in August 2003, we realized that to prove our innocence we had to file a civil writ petition before the Delhi High Court. This was done in October 2003. Thereafter the numerous court dates, applications filed and arguments before the bench, which has been an exhausting experience for us, we have been exonerated from all charges by a Double Bench of the Delhi High Court on 13th September 2006. The Court of the Additional Sessions Judge has also acquitted us for non-declaration under the relevant sections of the Customs Act on 11th April 2007.
The satisfaction in proving our innocence is rewarding. We sincerely thank and would like to use this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Indian Judicial system for addressing and finishing this case in a relatively short time. Having decided to live in Delhi to complete the case was an enormous financial and emotional strain for our family. Thank you again for your time and understanding. We hope your readership benefit in some way from our experience. -H.S.Communication
2012
