The long dark tea time of the soul

This is old news, but those who are still unaware of it, here is the declaration. I got married to Sonali on 6th Feb 2007. Marriage does wonderful things to people. This post is not about that magic.

Talking about information sharing, we recently saw the power and magic of RTI. On september 22 2006, Sonali had first applied for a passport. The idea was to get a passport quickly, so that we can plan our marriage and honeymoon in February 2007. However somebody, somewhere was not happy with our plans. There was no signs of Sonali’s passport. The status page showed a cryptic message “Submit 3 PP forms and 3 photographs”. This remained even after we submitted at least 9 copies of PP forms and photographs, in addition to 9 that was submitted with the original application.

The complication was because Sonali had been in Delhi (Gurgaon, actually) for less than 3 months till september 2006. The laws of address verification for passport states that  the applicant must be residing in one address for more than a year. If that is not the case, the address verification has to be done for all the places that the applicant stayed in the past one year. In Sonali’s case this happened to be Kolkata and Gurgaon, in that order. This was clearly stated in the application.

First came the policeman at her Gurgaon residence in October 2006. He didn’t ask for a bribe, neither did she offer any. There was no need to, as all were papers were in order. We expected the passport to arrive latest by december after the verification report arrives from Kolkata. However, on november 2006, we saw the status message as “Police enquiry incomplete and case is being examined”. Within a week, this changed to “Submit 3 PP forms and 3 photographs.” We didn’t know what to do. Hence like good citizens, we submitted three more forms on November 25, 2006. The status remained unchanged. We resubmitted the forms in December. I also wanted to file an RTI application. However, the official discouraged me from doing so, claiming that my fiance will get her passport within 20 days. The status remained unchanged. They asked me to get a verification form signed by the SHO, Gurgaon so that they can issue a tatkal passport. I was told that demanding information under RTI will be a futile exercise, as she will get her passport very soon. That didn’t happen. We got married in February, and Sonali had all but lost hope of getting a new passport.

Finally on Friday, 20th April 2007, I went to the regional passport office in Delhi, and finally submitted one application on Sonali’s behalf, demanding information about the status of her passport application. All she had asked for was, “What action has been taken against the officials, who have delayed my passport”. That’s when the magic happenned. Sonali got her passport on tuesday, 24th April 2007.

Too late. But it was a good lesson. RTI is one of the most progressive legislation in independent India. It can do magic.