- Bribe Fighter
- 14 years ago
- 1434 views
Refused to pay bribe for registration of flat
Me and my wife recently bought a fairly high value property (2nd sale) at Bangalore. We were very clear from the beginning that we were not going to pay bribe. For one: the entire financial transaction was above board. The actual purchase value was the registered value. Our lawyer was categorically told that we will not pay anything that did not come without a valid receipt and no cash transaction. The lawyer informed us that this would require us to talk to the sub-registrar ourselves and close it. On the stipulated date we went to the sub registrars office and waited for some time, nothing drastic. As the process got underway, our lawyer asked us to ********** the sub registrar. We went and sat in front of him. He was clearly uncomfortable and went off on world affairs (some story about someone spending lot of their hard earned money for a property that in his opinion was not worth it etc... it was in Kannada, while I can follow it, my wife being local could understand it). After his 10 minute monologue, I got up and came back to waiting area, my wife happily worked on her blackberry. She too soon came back. After another 15 minutes again our lawyer came and asked us to ********** the sub-registrar who had by then moved to the back room where the records are kept. This time I asked him what the issue was, he was taken aback and went off (again in Kannada) into why it was important to pay and how the money is expected by everyone up the ladder etc...I gave him my point of view of the fact that there was not an ioata of stuff that was illegal and I had no intention of doing anything illegal. He got into pleading mode in Kannada and I lost him, my wife and he indulged in a conversation which was around the part of what your heart desires. My wife informed him that our heart desires that we stick to the principles that we believe in and therefore despite his pleading we would not want to go against our "heart desire" and our principle. He by then was totally shaken and in an area he had no clue on how to proceed and concluded by stating that he will clear but we may have problem down the road. I informed him that I am used to these kind of stuff including receiving some silly notice from office of under-valuation the previous time too. There again I had forced our lawyer(who was very reluctant) to send a letter stating that I was willing to hand over the property back for the value I paid. I never heard back from them. By this time, he was totally out of his comfort zone and we went ahead with our registration.
For one - the fear of our active lok ayukta coupled with our conviction not to budge ensured that it went off without a hitch. My wife was at her argumentative best and did the more forceful push back..