- Bribe Fighter
- 13 years ago
- 2375 views
Resisted bribe for passport
My father and I went to Mumbai RPO to renew my father's and mother's passport. The person at the counter said that my father's old passport is damaged. Actually there was no damage. He asked us to come inside and ********** a higher officer who also insisted that it was damaged. He said we must make an affidavit of Rs. 2000 mentioning that existing passport is damaged. We felt this was to make our life difficult and force us into asking an alternate route - that is, pay him a bribe. We just said ok and walked off.
Next day we went to Bandra Carter Road Police station where there is a passport collection centre. The person at the counter asked my father's occupation, etc and then asked us to attach his bank passbook copy showing latest balance figures in addition to first page. I protested since latest balance figures has nothing to do with passport and also no such thing is mentioned on the Passport office website. But he insisted. Basically he was sizing our bribe paying capacity. Again we walked away.
Third day - my father alone took both applications (his and my mother's along with authority letter) again to Mumbai RPO. This time he stood in the Senior Citizen's line. At the counter there was a lady officer. She examined the documents, found everything was in order and processed it. The passports came as per process in 45 days.
I lost two working days in the process. But this showed me that with lot of patience, in the end paying a bribe can be resisted. This may not be true in all cases but at least in some. It depends how badly you want your work done. The higher your need, larger is the bribe. Shame on you bribe-takers!!