A brush with the all-too-familiar traffic policeman
Posted on August 19, 2013
Bribes have become so common in India, that reporting one instance immediately strikes a chord in a person thousands of kilometres away. There are some instances which get instant recognition. One of it is being stopped on the road by the police for a minor traffic violation. It happens everywhere in India, and in most cases there could be a negotiation for a bribe. But if you are not keen on paying a bribe, the offence though minor, is recorded as something major, so that there is a greater incentive for you to pay the bribe and get out. Laws generally are so detailed, that if a policeman wants to hold you accountable, he can look for a large number of minor violations committed by you.
But to your surprise there could be instances when the fine is immediately imposed without waiting for you to recover and a receipt is provided within minutes for you to pay up. This normally happens when there are certain 'targets' for the police on fine collection. It is so seamlessly efficient, the minute a violation takes place you are fined.
Here is an instance of a bribe fighter whose evening began like any other but ended differently because he resisted a dominant trend of bribery.
Sandeep Giri, a software engineer was caught by the police in Delhi for a minor violation. His story is so common that it strikes a chord everywhere. Sandeep originally from Bangalore had moved to Delhi, and normally uses his car to travel around in Delhi and it is then the story begins.
One evening in Gurgaon, Sandeep took a short turn on the road and drove on the wrong side of the road and thereby violated a traffic rule. Immediately, a cop stopped him and asked him to cough up Rs. 500. His first question to this policeman was on what basis is he being charged this high amount, while his offence attracted a fine of not more than Rs 200. The policeman then showed him a list of penalty charges, in which Rs 500 was charged to more severe traffic offences. Sandeep resisted saying that he will not pay this amount as he has not committed all those offences as accused by the policeman.
The policeman did not budge nor did Sandeep. Finally the policeman had to threaten that the car will be impounded if the fine is not paid. Sandeep let the traffic police seize the car. Though there were no demands made by the police for a bribe, the very action of the police imposing a higher penalty charge has a tendency of graduating to a bribe demand, in which the offender can easily get away by paying the bribe, but Sandeep had stood his ground.
One offence can lead to the police charging you on other related minor offenses increasing the chances of you being forced to cough up a bribe. Resisting the police gets more complex at this stage and the offender is under duress to pay the bribe.
Sandeep’s story is a case in point. He went to the Sector 29 police station to retrieve his car for which he paid a bribe much higher than the amount he refused to pay in the first instance. He did this as many more offences were charged against him. His only weakness was that he lacked evidence to prove his stand. He finally chose not to legally fight it out but settled the case by paying up the fine.
His experience in dealing with such a situation was not new. He had similar experience with Bangalore Traffic Police too.
Nevertheless, he stood his ground of giving in to the momentary pressure tactics of a policeman. But alas, he could not follow up and fight it out till the end.