Another letter from the former wife of SKS Microfinance’s Vikram Akula
Moneylife Digital Team 13 October 2010

Despite our repeated attempts, SKS Microfinance has not spoken to Moneylife. Meanwhile, in her second letter to us, Malini M Byanna has pointed to several new issues not in the public domain

Dear Sucheta Dalal,

Further to my note, (Moneylife: Please see http://moneylife.in/article/4/9924.html), I wanted to clarify that the SKS Microfinance Board of Directors and/or investors have never maintained a "dignified distance," from our messy divorce and court battles over the years and have consistently used corporate resolutions, corporate resources, and corporate staff, agents, and assigns to either initiate hostile, oppressive, and coercive legal action against me or cover up all of Vikram Akula's and his family's unethical or illegal activities to date, whether it be civil or criminal.

Indeed, SKS Microfinance's Human Resources Manager - Vikram Akula's maternal cousin whose father was a member of SKS Microfinance's Board of Directors at the time - conspired and colluded in the first child abduction of our son over Columbus Day Weekend 2001 in Chicago, Illinois along with Vikram Akula's parents, brother, and paternal aunt, all of whom flew in from the East Coast to help further the plot and plan.

Fast forward to Columbus Day Weekend 2009, Vikram Akula, along with his mother, and his Executive Assistant, pulled our son out of school on 12 October 2009, and took him to the Family Court of Hyderabad to obtain ex parte orders against me, with the knowledge, assistance, and participation of one of SKS' corporate attorneys.

Fast forward one week later to Diwali Weekend 2009, Vikram Akula, along with his Executive Assistant and Assistant Human Resources Manager fraudulently produced and obtained Jet Airways boarding passes and e-ticket itineraries in both my son's and my name for a flight we never took and for a date on which we never even approached or entered the airport and used the same to file false criminal charges against me both in India and in the US, with SKS' then Assistant Human Resources Manager receiving a promotion shortly thereafter to Human Resources Manager and presumably a substantial increase in salary, perquisites, and benefits.

It is important to note that soon after our son's abduction in Chicago, Illinois, I brought formal charges against Vikram Akula by and through the SKS Foundation Board of Directors to not only protect myself as a law student and aspiring officer of the court but to bring to the attention of the governing body all of Vikram Akula's and his family's illegal, unethical, and fiscally irresponsible methods and practices given that SKS Foundation was SKS Microfinance's funding source. The matter was investigated with certain findings made, after which every single board member resigned, and Vikram Akula's millionaire uncle along with his billionaire partner brought in their own people to serve as the new SKS Foundation Board of Directors, namely family and staff, and to protect his nephew and their investment.

It is also important to note that all documentation of said proceedings were destroyed a year later by and through corporate resolution, which I learned about when I formally requested said documentation from SKS Foundation as and for my records during the period I was completing my application to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission such that I could obtain my law license after passing (the) Bar Exam. Thankfully, I had kept copies of all material and relevant documentation. It is further important to note that Ashish Lakhanpal was one of the SKS Foundation Board members that were brought in by Vikram Akula's millionaire uncle and billionaire partners, who abruptly resigned for unknown reasons from SKS Microfinance Pvt Ltd. upon the sacking of Suresh Gurumani.

Moreover, Vikram Akula did not spend "almost every alternative week for his divorce and custody battles" in the US and, in fact, only returned as and when he had SKS business to conduct or was promoting himself at various speaking engagements through the country - roughly every alternate month and at times not returning for 6-8 weeks at a time - cancelling his visitation left and right because his primary focus and goal was to globetrot around the world and amass his fame, fortune, and coffers, all the while neglecting his one and only son.

Indeed, it was me who made all of the financial, professional, and even social sacrifices to successfully raise our son - against all odds for over 8 years - providing him with stable homes, stable schools, and a stable life that included friends, family, and a strong faith-based community with whom we maintained close relationships throughout the years only for Vikram Akula, family, and company to violently rip and tear him from his mother and from his motherland and everything he knows and loves back home, all in furtherance of SKS Microfinance Pvt Ltd's IPO.

You might ask, what is the connection? The connection is that SKS Microfinance Pvt Ltd had to disclose to SEBI (the Securities and Exchange Board of India) and to the public any and all criminal convictions and/or civil judgments entered against any and all Board of Directors and/or Corporate Officers as also any and all pending litigation, either in India or in the US, prior to the Initial Public Offering, and the best way to erase Vikram Akula's questionable past and all of the adverse rulings that were handed down against him in both the civil and criminal courts of Illinois was to abduct and illegally detain my son in India, obtain ex parte orders against me while I was out of the country, and proceed to bully, bulldoze, and bankrupt me with mentally, emotionally, psychologically, physically, financially, and even professionally draining litigation in two different countries with diametrically opposite time zones using corporate staff, resources, agents/assigns, perquisites/benefits, methods/means to debilitate me to such an extent that I would either have a nervous breakdown or voluntarily give up custody of my son.

Finally, the public needs to know that SKS Microfinance Pvt Ltd failed to fully disclose all pending litigation as against Vikram Akula in their initial Red Herring Prospectus, after which I filed a formal complaint with SEBI notifying them of all undisclosed pending litigation against Vikram Akula in India and in the US. SEBI then required that SKS Microfinance disclose the same by issuing a second public notice, but again full disclosure was not made and the second public notice was fraught with factual misrepresentations as the substantive and procedural posture of the various proceedings.

As such, I filed a second formal complaint with SEBI, but to no avail. Indeed, for all of Vikram Akula's public platforms and platitudes about strengthening women and children, providing economic and professional opportunities to families, increasing access to legal and financial resources, and exposing fraud and corruption, he has gone out of his way to silence, subjugate, and suffocate individual after individual in both his private and corporate life, with the greatest causalities being his own wife and child, who have been traumatised and terrorised for over 12 long months.

Malini M Byanna
(The Former Wife)
 

Comments
Amit
1 decade ago
What does Sonia have to say about this now? Can't she instruct Rahul to stay away from bud Vikram so that he doesn't get to use the Gandhi's protection?
Kewal
1 decade ago
Shame on Vikram Akula and other MFI companies.


Shame on investors/funds like Seqoua (who is a "promoter" of the company), INFY MUrthy...who all jumped into this to make money.

Shame on the foolish funds that bought out Vikram before the IPO. Greedy guys you deserve it.

The company will now crash and burn.
sanjay jain
1 decade ago
murthy sab, aap kya kahenge is baare mein?
k a prasanna
1 decade ago
Read 25 reasons why one should not invest in SKS micro finance, in first choice IPO analysis blog.
apoorva
1 decade ago
shame on you vikram Akula.
thank you Malini for removing the mask of this monster.
I am glad for not getting enticed by SKS micro-finance ipo, which now appears to be a parody of the real concept of Gramin bank..
pantulu
1 decade ago
Dear friends,
The episode speaks volumes about dishonest people at helm in the area of finance.Earlier the so-called NBFCs cheated middle class people of their hardearned money including retirement benefits. Now microfinance companies are squeezing not so well-off people. In both the cases our wonderful governments help the oppressors and not voiceless people. Do we need such a system of governance? It is high time to ponder over alternatives for this system since right now vested interests are ruling with a couple of exceptions like Nitish Kumar.
pyk
1 decade ago
very surprising fact is investment ( CAN BE MISTAKE)by mr narayan murthy of infosys and his silence-very very critical , on the ethical matter!!!now things are out and open , but silence is deafening. saying matter is subjudice is typical indian bureacratic style. it wd become another satyam looks like in due course.
r balakrishnan
Replied to pyk comment 1 decade ago
surely not. He probably knew the full facts and took a call on the listing price. He is extremely savvy about the stock market. If you know that, rest of the things do not matter at all. No one in corporate circles (whether India or US) can claim to practice ethics at the absolute level. Relative level, so long as it is convenient.
pyk
Replied to r balakrishnan comment 1 decade ago
this explains the term cybercoolie , the looong working hrs at software companies,the goodi goodie image management of infy ..it seems to be one of the most cunnning management . i always had suspicion when everything was projected to be too good to be true , let it be sks / infy or such company. money per se has no colour, weather made by selling drugs or guns or concept. one has to be very careful while dealing with any of the citibank or excitibank types.they wd sell anything as long as evaluation is right!!
dv
1 decade ago
Lack of full disclosure in the SEBI application is possibly fraud. Shouldn't the promoters of SKS be hauled for this? What does the company have to say?
R Balakrishnan
1 decade ago
SEBI keeping quiet does not befit a regulator. This makes one suspect whether all is well when SEBI gives the go ahead for an IPO.
SKS has done investors a favour by warning the investing public about the perils in such a company. What is shocking is the PE investors' greed!
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