Legal Notice received from RPS Group regarding website

[ddamitav]

why to chicken out from the problem, lets fight, RPS is not owner of rps-savana.co.in.

[webmaster]

Anyone else willing to join us, please email me.

[Chintan]

Hi Jayant,

Let me know the timings... I am ready to escort you.

[gaurgupta]

Hello Jayanta,

I am with you too as have been always.

Let me know the timings when you want me there.

Regards,
Gaurav

[mac_amitg111]

I am seriously surprised and worried, the way RPS people are behaving.

[webmaster]

A sincere thanks to Mr. Sanjay Sinha, Chintan Murty and Dinesh Manwani who joined me at the RPS Group office on Thursday, 3rd June to meet the RPS Management on the notice issue.

We met Mr. Rajesh Jain and Mr. Shailendra Nangia, General Manager Legal Affairs and discussed several issues about the project. We informed them that we are not using any copyright material on the website and they seemed reasonable not to pursue the issue further. They were unhappy about the articles posted on the website which they thought could damage their reputation. We clarified that all the information published on the website are the facts that we could gather unofficially from them, and this rift between the members and RPS management is due to the lack of communication from RPS.

Regarding completion of the project, there was no commitment from them about the exact dates but they said they are trying their best to handover possession of some of the towers by the end of this year. We asked them to allow site visits inside the apartment’s at least once or twice a month, to decide a particular date and time when site would be open for visits. Even though they cited safety reasons and site inspection by hundreds of customers probably hampering and delaying the progress, they said they would consult the management and consider opening site visits.

We also agreed to hold monthly meetings between the Savana members and RPS management to address concerns and share real-time status update on the project progress. This would immensely help in reassuring the customers about the project. They said for the project delay, penalty would be given based on a fair decision taken by the RPS management and Savana members together.

We asked them to formally join the forum, a representative from RPS to answer all generic queries which would obviously help them as a single response from them would help to answer and reassure all the members.

The overall meeting went well and ended on a positive note. They seemed more open to interact with the forum customers regularly and share updates and take suggestions. We tried to make them realize that we are not trying to form a group against them, but we wanted to work along with them and unless they start to acknowledge us and start responding more actively and with clarity, this will not happen.

Mr. Sanjay Sinha, a senior developer himself with a rich experience and background assisted us greatly in the interaction with RPS and also in making us understand the technicalities of the different issues. I am sure we have lot of more experienced people on the forum. I would request them to come forward and start participating on the forum more actively, unless they share their knowledge and experience, it would be very difficult for a common man like me to get a clear perception of the real world.

Pardon me if I missed anything, the other members can fill in.

[webmaster]

Update to the issue.

RPS has decided to pursue the case and has filed a complaint against me and the domain rps-savana.co.in to the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)

I received around 50 pages documents about the case, they are insisting that I am violating their copyright materials, and the logos we are using are only a cosmetic modification to their logos.

They have also stated that the second domain that I have registered www.savanaonline.com also infringes their copyright name 'SAVANA'. They do not want us to have any association even remotely linked to their name, they have stated that the website is in bad faith and with bad intentions.

Now since I do not want to get into this never ending loophole of legal battle alone, please suggest the next steps. I have no problem meekly surrendering the website and give in to their threats and lead a peaceful and worry free life.

[dheerajjain]

My support is with you, Jayanta. Please check your e-mail

[s1joshi]

Does RPS mean that we should stay away from anything that has Savana name in it !!!!

I am really furious with the attitude of RPS, I visited RPS office last month around 19th and confronted Mr Jain on the monthly meetings and site visits he agreed upon with the representatives and he just tried to wash it off over the talks. As RPS is nearing the committed possession handover date, and are nowhere close to completion, the only motive for RPS is to harass people so that they stop asking questions.

Possibly they might not have been seeing much activity on the website and might in the thoughts that we have all forgotten all the money that we have invested on the project, Mr Jain mentioned that RPS is keeping a close eye on all posts that we are submitting here and hence discussing on possible course of action here may have some disadvantages, but this should not deter us from using our own website.

here are some things we should consider on immediate basis.

1. Register ourselves as association and transfer the website on association name as an immediate measure, Unless we do that, RPS will continue to put pressure on individual (Jayanta) to withdraw the site.

We all have been talking about registering association, but no action so far on the same, We need to have a group meeting soon with minimum 7 members, to complete the formalities required for registering our association, Please note this is not a tedious process.

2. File an FIR with Delhi/Faridabad police against RPS, and we have plenty of reasons for the same.

What we would be getting is not what we paid for.
I see no hope of RPS claims of handling over possession of any of the towers by end of this year.
For bigger size projects, internal development is responsibility of the builder, and RPS is still quite a far distance from starting anything in that direction, Even if they hand over apartment, its gonna be useless.

Regards
Seema

[vrati]

Dear Jayanta,

I am a recent entrant to this group but found it to be extremely useful. Thanks a lot for all the trouble that you have taken. We certainly would like this to continue but I dont see why should you get into legal hassles for this. The solution seems to be that you make this as a Yahoo group or rename the site as savanasufferes.org ! I hope that RPS would allow us to use SAVANA in our addresses ! In any case I would appreciate if you could continue this somehow.

Thanks a million once again,

-Sudhanshu

[webmaster]

RPS seems to be having a problem with any website/forum coming up to discuss their projects. As I said before, they are trying every tactics to stop/block any channel of communication between the residents. They are afraid of the growing community which they know can bring trouble for them looking at the progress of the project.

There is a secondary domain registered named http://www.savanaonline.com. RPS is aware of the domain name and they have mentioned that it is also a copyright violation since it contains SAVANA. Their attitude is getting ridiculous by the day.

Extract from the complaint notice.

The bad faith of the respondent while registering the instant infringing domain and during its use is further evident from his overall conduct. It specifically includes the registration of another domain (http://www.savanaonline.com) by the infringer in his name on 26th February 2010. This second domain also infringes the trademark and other IP rights of the Complainant in respect of the mark SAVANA. It is also notable that this second domain was for long redirected on the infringing domain and it was only after the receipt of legal notice by the Complainant, the Respondent removed this redirection after the first week of June 2010. It clearly confirms that the Respondent has and had the dishonest intention to take undue advantage of complainant's credibility and market goodwill. The Complainant is in the process of seeking appropriate legal remedy against Respondent in respect of the said other domain.

[Sudhanshu]

Hi all,
I am surprised that RPS has problem with savanaonline.com. we can fight a legal battle over issue. Having said that i would reiterate that this is not our core issue. If we can really fight with RPS than we will find that this issue comes in bottom in the priority list.
Regards
Sudhanshu

[mbhattacharya]

Hello,
Just wanted to comment upon Sudhanshu's observation that may be this is'nt a core issue for us to deal with right now but lets remember that if RPS can go to this length to stop us hosting a community website then god knows what they will do next if we decide to register a society????
Now they have problems with a website and next will be something else..so we should'nt be taking this one lightly and find out a way to reply to their legal notice.

So i believe we should now urgently work towards registering an association so that we can present them a common front as they must be thinking its easier to scare a single individual(jayanta) than a group of people.

Guys lets act fast NOW !!

Regards,

Madhusudhan Bhattacharya
Sapphireberry 11

[chintubajaj]

I totally agree with Madhusudhan..

I think we need to think logically and prepare ourselves so that Jayanta can respond to the notice.

Anyone know any lawyer who is expert in Cyber Laws? I think the only point of concerns is the domain name.. remaining stuff like writing facts about RPS.. no one can stop us from doing it.

Following is my proposal:

1. Stop the website with the domain name "RPS" in it (so that we have time to react to the notice) - This is just so that Jayanta does not get into any issues.

2. Create a yahoogroup and ensure that only the RPS flat owners sign-up (I am part of another similar group for JMD Gardens in Gurgaon.. and I can tell you that its been very very successfuly. We have meetings with JMD's MD quite frequently and have been able to influence lots of decisions).

Thanks,
Chintu

[webmaster]

This is the result of the domain dispute related to the domain http://www.rps-savana.co.in.

Below is the arbitration awarded after both party had submitted all documents related to the domain. Please refer to the attached pdf file for the complete document.