• I Paid A Bribe
• 11 years ago
• 8004 views

Dear sir /madam i had gone to SUBREGISTRAR, MYSORE SOUTH , Mysore…

• Stamps and Registration
• Registration of Sale Deed
• Paid INR 25,000

Dear sir /madam
i had gone to SUBREGISTRAR, MYSORE SOUTH , Mysore for registering the sale deed of a property i had purchased in a upmarket locality - Jayalakshmipuram. as all the records were clean and the purchase value was much higher than the guidance value, i was confident that i did not have to bribe anyone. the day before i had contacted Mr Kiran ( subregistrar ) through a friend of mine who is a very close friend of him. i was just hoping that talking to him would make things happen smoothly. i was taken aback when he asked for 25000Rs as bribe. i did not want to give that and i just left the matter at that and did not confirm that i am ready to bribe. instead i thought i can do it on my own and i asked my advocate to help me out with the registration process (as it is difficult for anyone to do any transaction on own in the SR office without agents help) .
As the sellers were from outstation and one of the sellers was flying abroad same evening, i wanted to finish the registration process as early as possible. so i reached at 10:15 am in morning . the agent of the advocate helped me in filling of the forms and other formalities. once all the documents were ready, i called the sellers and my wife and parents who promptly arrived. Sub registrar Mr Kiran was not available on that day and other SR Ms Shashikala was the only SR available that day. she arrived late at around 11:00 am. my document was one of the first few documents to be taken to her for initial signing on the application( by the agent off course) which she promptly ignored for long time to look at. when she looked at the document, she found that everything was in order and did not have anything to pick at. so she ultimately said that she wanted to see if any court stay order was there against registering the property. this was done after obtaining a clean Encumbrance certificate, all the legal heirs being present for the registration. the agent went and promptly got the register which has the entry of court orders. it had one entry for a property no 8 (which also happened to be the number of the property i wanted t register). but this property was in Brindavan extension and of much smaller dimension. there were no court orders regarding any properties in Jayalakshmipuram. when this register was shown to her, again left with no choice she said she wanted to see the copy of the court order pertaining that property just to make sure that the Property Schedule is not marked wrongly in the register. suddenly the SR madam appeared to take extra care of my property which she was not doing to anybody. the catch is that these orders are kept in a haphazardly in a locked Almirah with no proper filing. the person who was supposed to check and take out the order copy said it will take a long time, or may be one day to trace it. again went back to Ms Shashikala to request her to sign the document. repeated pleadings fell to deaf ear. then my advocate arrived and tried to reason out with her,but she did not listen. so he went back to the clerk, fought with him, took out files of all the court orders and started checking them personally. but the order we were searching for was not available. we had hit a road block. then more argument followed with the SR but without any use. at around 12:30 pm she suddenly walked out of her chair into the private room inside. Agents were free to go inside and she was signing the documents inside itself. then my lawyer also went inside and tried to reason with her. then she reluctantly signed the initial form with a caveat that she will register the deed only after seeing the alleged court order.
after getting the initial signature, the process of documentation started. simultaneously renewed attempts were made to trace the court order. in between the office guys started getting calls from the inside with some or other pretext of finding out some fault, and documents were scrutinized another couple of times and no fault were found. when we thought everything was going smooth, the madam suddenly disappeared (at around 1 pm). we were waiting for her to come back and she did not come back even at 3:00 pm. we were getting jittery as one of the seller had to leave mysore to airport at 4:00 pm.
then i got a call from my friend who had contacted the other SR Mr Kiran, and asked me why i had gone for registration through the lawyer when Mr Kiran (since he was not available that day), had already discussed my property with Ms Shashikala. so Ms Shashikala had already known that kiran had asked for 25000 Rs bribe. what she did not know was that i had not agreed to bribe. but she was determined to get the bribe. when i spoke to my lawyer he also washed his hands saying that if she had aready zeroed on the amount then there is no way i can escape it and the amount she was asking was on the lower side only. he did not want to press the matter saying that if he pressurizes more he will face difficulties when he comes next time. all this while she was not in the office.
i had done a registered sale deed which was about to expire, and the sellers had come from different states and one of them was going abroad same day, i did not have any other option but to register the deed on the same day. so few more calls were exchanged between my friend and Mr Kiran. they were not ready to reduce the amount and maintained that this was less than what was taken normally. left with no options i agreed to pay the bribe and handed over the bribe to another agent specified by them.
then things again started moving fast. even though Ms Shashikala was not available, she asked one of her deputies to sign the documents which was promptly done.
in addition i had to pay the lawyer another 10000 Rs for his trouble ( who was there to help me register without paying bribe). he maintained that most of it would be distributed to the office workers. except for the senior officers, most of the documentation work is done by outsourced employees who work for paltry salary. but take money from the agents to make documentation faster. so much for making documentation digital. there is unofficial fees for taking photo, scanning and even affixing stamp.

i could not help but think that i had made a complete Idiot of myself. if only i had agreed to pay 25000 Rs bribe, i could have saved the 10000 Rs paid to the Lawyer and more importantly loose one day of work ( i had to reschedule and postpone surgeries).

now i have to again visit the SR office for registering the Memorandum of depositing the Documents with the bank . this time around i am more wise. i will pay them bribe and save myself some trouble.