- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 2175 views
Bribe to register, re-claim, and sell my OWN land.
- Municipal Services
- Registration of Land
- Paid INR 9,10,000
My father bought a piece of land on N.H. 8 right outside of Navsari in 1994 for a relatively good deal. Our entire family moved out of India in 1998. Before moving out my father entered my mother's name in the land to make it a joint owned property. My father passed away after couple of years and we had not really done anything with the land. With expansion and economic boom, the land was now in the city limit of Navsari and was also priced high as my relatives in India told me. In hope of selling the land to start a new business in London where I lived, I went to India to sell the land.
I noticed that the entire land was a lake. There was a bunglow next to my land where a hotel owner lived who had been acting as if he was the land owner. He sold trucks and trucks of the mud to construction contractors that they need to built properties. With the huge land now being about 6ft below the level from every side, he leased it to a fisherman to make it a fish pool and harvest fishes from it. He also expanded his house and built a wing that was coming on my land with a large compound as well. If that wasn't enough, he leased the front of the land facing the highway to people who built shops on it. Every time I called to municipal office of Navsari the answer was that my land is under my mother's name and its safe.
The ********** bunglow owner refused to get out of the land and called it his land under the so called public Indian law of "whoever plough the land, its his property." After months of hassle with offices, police, lawyers nothing happened. They refused to recognize it as my land since my father had passed away and according to them there was no real owner of it. They said that my mother could not claim the land anymore as well since it would require my father's and her joint signature. They would refuse to recognize me being the only child as heir to my father's property and said its gone now. Everyone refused to help me because the bunglow owner gave all of them free treats at his hotel and free meals for their families. I paid bribe of 150,000 Rs to Officer in Municipality, 40,000 Rs to associate to claim the land and register it under my name. Rs 35,000 to labors to get fisherman off the land and pull out all the water, re-level the land. They municipality still refused that the front part where there were shops were built was part of my land. I had to pay total sum of Rs. 400,000 to another officer and owners of those shops in damage to their business(i don't know why it's my land they were hijackers)and to get all the shops demolished. Why did I pay to shop owners? I was also threatened by shop owners that they would cut my in pieces if I went to claim their shops by so called gangs they knew in town. They had people with knives sitting there everytime I went to talk peacefully.
I paid 80,000 to a high ranking police officer to get the bunglow owner to either pay for the land he expanded his bunglow on or demolish it. I dont know what happened but at the end the police officer said that its already built and it can not be demolished anymore. Its been over 12 months so I'd have to file a court case. I lost the bribed money. I filed a court case and paid 100,000 to the laywer from which 60,000 was bribed to the judge to rule the case in my favor.
After all this hassle, I now had to sell the land. I paid 70,000 Rs to register it under my name, and another 50000 to sell and tax and some other reasons the officer told that I did not care to know. I was losing too much money and I had to back to england.
So after about 5 and half month,Rs. 910,000,losing my job in england and salary of 5 and half months,countless money spend in travel to all these offices and courts I was able to sell my OWN land. I collected the money, transferred in my international bank account and left the country the week after and has never looked back. I love my country but I feel sorry that it will torn apart by corruption and terrorism. I will always love my country but won't go there until they clean out this corruption so a normal man can live free.
********** **********!!