- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 316 views
Will I won't I?
- Stamps and Registration
- Land Registration
- Paid INR 700
A close friend took me and wife along to the Sub-Registrar's office for getting her Will registered. She had just lost her husband, and was shifting to Bangalore with her mother. The Sub-Registrar's office at ********** is designed (?) to ensure that visitors will only be too glad to pay a bribe and get the **********out of there quickly. It is a crumbling old building, with dingy, narrow corridors and mosquitoes that look and behave as if they're employed by the office. Significantly, the office has only one narrow entry/ exit, and we did not see a single fire extinguisher anywhere. In case of a fire, which I'm sure will happen one day, only the officials will escape (since they'd have used the bribe money suckers like us pay to bribe their way out of Yama's clutches).
Now to the actual registration process:
You pay money (through a tout, naturally) if you don't want to have your application rejected on some specious grounds and have to return another day... and another... and another...
You also pay to get into a decent position in the numbered queue. If you don't bribe you'll be handed a waiting list number of 100 or more, even if you were the first to land up at the office in the morning (as we were). Since we paid only Rs.700/- (after haggling, naturally) we were alloted a 'number' of around 30 (Rs.1000/- or thereabouts would have seen us back home within a half hour, but our friend unfortunately is a retired schoolteacher and had to be careful with her pension). After the necessary 'wait' of about 2 hours we were ushered into the office by the tout and introduced to the officials. Everything went very smoothly thereafter. We were identified, photographed, stamped and sent on our way with the assurance that the 'Registered' Will would be delivered on a certain date. It was (honour among thieves!). Our schoolteacher friend is now in Bangalore, proud owner of a 'Registered' Will and poorer by Rs.700/-. She's also probably wondering about the forty years or so she spent teaching the virtues of honesty to incredulous schoolkids.