- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 298 views
Ambiguity in law allows Municipal Corporation to demand Exorbitant taxes
- Municipal Services
- Property Tax
- Paid INR 1
Our company had rented an office premises in Parel, Mumbai and were renting it for over 18 months for Rs. 1.6 Lacs per month. Suddenly after 18 months the BMC officials come to our office and demand Rs. 48 Lacs as property tax on the rent paid - in 18 months we had paid only 29 Lacs as rent!
They were rude enough to say that either we pay this amount or pay them Rs. 10 Lacs in bribe so that they can reduce the official tax amount to less than Rs. 6 Lacs.
We recorded both our meetings (one in BMC office and one in our office). Once they realized we were not going to give in and were going to fight - as they came to know we were recording this, they went after the landlord and started pressurizing them stating that they will attach the property if they do not settle this. We were harassed every day and since we were recording the stuff they refused to talk in either premises and used to hold meetings on the road. Finally, we had no choice but to vacate the premises and loose our investment of more than 30 lacs in furnishing the premises.
Even though we had sent these recordings (video and audio) to some of the leading newspapers in the city, no one even bothered to report this. We even went to the local corporator, who requested us to settle the issue and did not go further than that. We even communicated this to the MLA chosen from South Mumbai, and he too neglected this.
In this country even media publishes something which is going to be viewed by masses and their purpose is to increase their viewership / readership to generate more revenue and not to publish the right thing!!!! Everyone is interested only if it is beneficial to them, not a single soul wants to do something just to fight against the wrong!
It is extremely important to improve our legal system and unless we ensure that any legal case does not take a very long time, people are going to consider legality as a nuisance (or an avenue to buy a lifetime) and hence going to avoid it, even if it means paying bribe. This is the exact reason the government officials are shameless enough to openly ask bribe / extort money.
Ask every finance minister of the past as to why they do not allocate more amount to improve our legal system, in the budgets that they have presented year after year!!