- Bribe Hotline
- 13 years ago
- 5311 views
The police report of my passport application is pending since the last 2 months, perhaps because I did not pay the Rs 1000 demanded by the constable. My question is - is there any time limit for th
I am glad you did not pay the bribe! Demanding bribes for passport verification is a common problem. The situation is one where the police know that you have no choice, and so extract a price from you.
There is no time limit specified for the police to submit verification report. The website of the External Affairs Ministry under their passport portal http://passport.gov.in/ clearly mentions that the police is supposed to verify the details and documents of the applicant and that it does not require the applicant to produce himself before the police. However, in most cases, the police violate this provision and try to demand bribes, mainly because they are confident that the applicants are ignorant of the rules. They also withhold the application to delay the procedure in order to extract bribes from the applicant.
If you do not want to meet the official concerned, you can meet his senior and take a written complaint with you. Also file an RTI application with the Passport office to find out what has happened to your application, if it is delayed. There are several instances reported in our -I didnt pay a bribe section where citizens have successfully resisted demands for bribes for the issue of passports and for the police verification. It is only if we stand up and be firm about not paying a bribe, that things will change. You can follow our 10 commandments of resisting a bribe. These commandments are experiences of citizens having resisted a bribe. They are available for download here: http://ipaidabribe.com/downloads/ipab_tencommandments.pdf
Where you come across instances such as this, I would suggest that you make a written complaint about such case to the vigilance authorities mentioned in the website of the External Affairs Ministry, at http://passport.gov.in/