Ok... so today I went to the R.T.Nagar Police station to file the FIR. The inside of this place is so dirty, it will make you sick! I ask around to find out what needs to be done so that the FIR can be filed. The first question was "Sir, where do you work?" (what the hell for?) - I guess this was to evaluate the depth of my pocket. So he starts of by telling me that I will need to go to the court and file an affidavit saying I have lost the RC book and then bring it to the station. As I was standing there scratching my head, (this was not what I heard - I thought it would be simpler) he even showed me a sample. Before I could read it completely, he put it back in the drawer. I had taken a copy of the RC book and insurance with me.
THEN he gives me the OR you could do this solution....
He said he would type out a letter and I could sign it and then he would go and get the inspector's signature. I would of course have to give them their 'something' for their 'effort'. Please note that at no point of time do they actually tell you how much!
So on my nod, he goes ahead, pulls up a 'template' (in Kannada) makes the changes and takes a couple of print outs. I then put my signature and he seals the doc and the 'chalan' and then gets his 'superiors' signature on it. When done, I tried pushing a 50 buck note into his hands - his reaction was worth the money! I had to fork out another 50 bucks and show him my purse in the process before he would allow me to scoot with the FIR. 100 bucks for less than 10 minutes of work! That too tax free
Shame on these people! Funniest part is at no point of time did he check the copy of the RC book! Frightening isn't it? So at the end of the day without any affidavit, no xerox copies, or anything else, just 100 bucks got me an FIR for my vehicle. I could have given him any registration number and he would have done the same!
OT - (What is more shameless is when I see Hoysala police stop can collect pocket money - sometimes even 10 bucks - from hotels and street vendors!)