Thursday, October 16, 2008

A letter to the Joint Commissioner of Police - Traffic

Respected Sir,

Recently, I was booked at the ____________ Junction for jumping a signal and for use of mobile phone while driving.

I am fully aware of the offense i committed and i promptly agreed to pay for the penalty of the offenses. It bought out a very weird expression from the traffic police on duty.
They gave me a 'pauthi' and asked me to collect the license from the Bhandup Sonapur Cabin.

Today as I presented the 'pauthi', the officer on duty at the Collection counter, Mr. S charged me Rs. 700/-. I paid him and he returned my license. However, he was reluctant to give me a receipt for the same.
When I insisted, he told me that I am not supposed to collect it from the cabin, but from the Court. He liked me as a person and hence he was doing this 'favor'.

He returned me Rs. 100/-.

I insisted on the receipt and told him that if Rs. 100 mattered to me, I would have tried to bargain with him on the day I was caught.

I also told him to return the Rs. 700/- and offered to give him back the license and collect it from the 'Court'.

He promptly made a receipt and gave it to me.

I would like to know if such a statement is indeed true. If it is, then why was I not asked to take the license from the court itself? And why did he be so nice to me and give me a receipt promptly?

It is indeed sad to see the state of corruption in the force. I understand the limitations and the difficult circumstances your officers work, but when an honest person is ready to abide by the law, I hope they are treated with respect and given the least trouble for being a law-abiding citizen.

I truly hope that you can do some little steps in bettering the system and tearing out corruption from it.

Yours sincerely,
P............

2 comments:

Cuckoo said...

Well not all are corrupt. :-)
I'll give you an example.

Once we were coming towards Powai flyover where construction is going on for quite sometime.

Instead of going from left/down we found ourselves in the direction of flyover but there was still time to turn to left side w/o even reversing the car. We switched on left indicators, waited for right time for clear road & then came to this road.

But the policeman on duty was watching us. Immediately we were stopped & again started the 'natak' of driving license etc. We asked what was the mistake to which he had no answer but being a weekend, he wanted to make some money.

Now, it was quite sometime & both the parties were becoming impatient. He said waise rate Rs 200/- ka hai, tum 100/- de do. What for ? He didn't know. Obviously he wasn't providing any receipts.

Unwillingly he was given Rs 100/- but I started arguing loudly with him on how can he charge when there was no offence.
After sometime he felt so guilty that he returned the money to us. :-)

Well, just now it comes to my mind that he returned the money b'coz he was losing other customers !! :-)

Prax said...

How does your example support the fact that 'Not all are corrupt'? A little confused here. Did I miss something.

The other thing is that I understand how difficult it is for these cops to live a life with the paltry salaries that they are offered. I realised this when I met the Colonel in Delhi who told me how Civil Servants are paid so little. A soldier is paid 4800 bucks for being in the front. The salary of a constable also ranges in the same pay bracket

My mobile bill comes to 3000 bucks, so I can understand that it it is indeed difficult to sustain a life in that kind of an amount, because of which they depend on corrupt methods.

If the department improves the salaries of these constables and balance the hike by being truthful and book more of fines for offenses, I think the corruption can be bought down manifolds, but then the decisions are to be taken by the corrupt politicians anyways!!!