IDSA's demand ridiculous: Follow Indian laws to do business in country

Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA) has been demanding amendments to the Prize Chits & Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 to enable the members of IDSA to loot the people of India without any let or hindrance.

What a shameless demand! If anybody wants to do business in any country, they have to respect the laws of the land and follow them scrupulously. But these IDSA members are demanding something else. They want to circumvent the law of the land to continue their fraudulent business.

Practising High Court advocate Shaik Mastan Vali came down heavily against the demand of the Indian Direct Selling Association to amend the Prize Chits & Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978. “It is really ridiculous and brazen on the part of the IDSA to put forward such demand,” he said.

Referring to the Supreme Court judgment in Kuriachan Chacko case, he said that the honourable Supreme Court upheld action against such con companies under PCMCS Act and where was ambiguity in the enactment and necessity for amendment of the same.

The next demand would be to do away with the Section 420 of Indian Penal Code as the Amway India was also booked under the provisions of that Section, he averred.

Earlier, IDSA demanded guidelines for undertaking direct selling of the products of its member-companies. Later, when it was proved that the guidelines prepared by the Kerala Government were not of much use for the continuance of their fraudulent business, now they are demanding amendments to the PCMCS Act and if possible they demand repeal of that enactment.

For the last three and half decades, it has been proved a good weapon against the illegal money circulation schemes undertaken by the fraudsters and tricksters.

IDSA claimed that the charges framed against the Amway India are frivolous and are giving misleading impression about its business activities.

What they conveniently try to sweep under the carpet is that the Andhra Pradesh High Court has already delivered its judgment about the business model of Amway stating it attracted the provisions of the PCMCS Act. Later, the Supreme Court also upheld the judgment, the High Court advocate, who filed a Writ of Mandamus on behalf of Corporate Frauds Watch in the AP High Court demanding implementation of GO 178/2008 issued against Amway India Enterprises in the past, pointed out.

Generally, victims seek investigation by agencies like CID or CBI. But strangely, these companies are seeking investigation by such agencies only to prolong period of investigation to continue their fraudulent activities.

To drive the point home, Mastan Vali recalls the demand by NMart to transfer investigation of the criminal case against the company to the CID. The statistics shows that the average period the CID takes to complete investigation into a criminal case is ten years whereas it is only six months in a law and order police station. This reason is enough for the fraudsters to put forward their demand to transfer the case to the CID or CBI where over 10,000 cases are pending investigation.