Hello friends
At last I managed to submit a petition under
RTI. I should say, with much difficulty. The man at the Information counter at Kolkata Passport Office gave me a big lecture on
RTI and why I should not apply when I merely asked him where to submit it. He even threatened me that if I went ahead, I would have to answer many questions and so on. He was not the least helpful. He told me I would have to find my own way in that office.
Anyway, after that I met another officer who was monitoring visitors to the offices inside. I managed to convince him that this was absolutely essential and so he took it to another officer and after that asked me to go and meet him. This officer (Mr M L Mukherjee, but I don't know his designation) explained to me that the delay was not their fault. My application has gone for verification from my birthplace (in Kerala) on Feb 18 and the report has not come. So he told me that there was no point in filing
RTI at this office, I should do it to the police in Kerala. I told him that to do that I would need some documentary evidence from the passport office and so the
RTI was still valid. At last he accepted the petition and signed a copy of it and gave me.
Now I don't know if I should file another complaint under
RTI to the police in Kerala. If yes, to whom and where? Don't the people at the passport office here have some responsibility to make sure that the verification is not delayed too much? Now it looks like this is going to take a lot longer than I expected.
Regards, Sajeev.