Jalandhar dealers caught in vicious circle

Doing business on credit terms has caught Jalandhar IT
traders on wrong foot. City's IT as well as electronic appliances dealers of
all hues have been wedged into a vicious circle created by one Ravinder Sandhu,
who allegedly swindled their money to the tune of Rs 70 to 80 lakh.

According to the information gathered from aggrieved
parties in Jalandhar, Sandhu has been involved in business for the last five to
six years and has done business with a whole lot of resellers operating in
Jalandhar market. Moreover, Jalandhar dealers were so much under the influence
of his polished talks and luxuriant lifestyle that they never refrained from
doing business with Sandhu.

Starting off his alleged fraud game, Sandhu started
sourcing of products from the market on credit in lieu of fake cheques. He used
to source computers, inverters, air conditioners and mobile phones from existing
dealers in the market on the assu­rance of settling payments through cheques
within the stipulated period of credit term. However, cheques issued by Sandhu
would usually bounce.

But from here the story takes a twist! Sandhu after
purchasing products on their market operating prices would sell these items to
end customers at much below the street price in cash gulping the entire amount
and never settled payments of the dealing parties from whom he sourced material.
More­over, whenever any dealer tried to threaten Sandhu with dire consequences
if he didn't return their money, he would make paltry disbursement to those
dealers to keep the business flow smooth. The approximate amount pending as dues
on Singh is to the tune of Rs 70 to 80 lakh.

Throwing more light on the sufferings of Jalandhar dealers,
Rajiv Khanna, President, Jalandhar Computer Dealers Association (JCDA), said,
“Literally every trader of this city is reeling under an ordeal just because
of this Ravinder Sandhu. This guy has stabbed in our back whom we all had
trusted. But due to his tailored techniques we never felt a wee bit that Sandhu
is weaving a devious web for us, till today we are clueless whether we should
blacklist Sandhu from the market or not since he is still operating in the
market and giving assurances to people whose money he owes that he would give
back their remaining dues very shortly. Every time any of the affected dealer
builds some pressure on Sandhu for money, he immediately arranges for some petty
amount and continues with his deeds.”

Added Vinayak Singh of Bit & Bite, “Whenever we
lodged a complaint against Sandhu he came out clear. So much so, now he has
started claiming openly that he doesn't owe any money and is not liable to
settle dues of any dealer. If anybody tries to frighten him with some judicial
inquiry or a police complaint he gives a very confident reply that he would
rather pay the bail penalty than to give out money to dealers.”

Dealers in Jalandhar, though in a slightly lower pitch are
conceding the fact that Sandhu has some political connections in Punjab on the
basis of which he never seems scared of Police and Judiciary. Police had
arrested Sandhu on the complaint of Vinayak Singh last month as well when he was
booked under Section 420.of IPC Moreover dealers have smelled the rat in
Jalandhar's IT trade as they are not ruling out the fact that some organized
gang of criminals has grappled Jalandhar's IT business and Sandhu might be a
part of it.

Ajay Goel of Mexican Infotech concurred, “I strongly feel
that Sandhu is not alone in this racket but some other people are also
supporting him. Everytime he is selling products picked up from dealers to some
particular people only, which strengthens my belief.” Meanwhile Goel had also
lodged a complaint against Sandhu and the next date of hearing of his case is on
27th of this month.

Interestingly, even though 80 percent of the dealers of
Jalandhar city and surrounding areas have been victimi­zed by Sandhu's greed
but every time he finds a new target to launch an attack. Blame it to the lack
of

Anjali Choudhary
New Delhi, April 21