Rajasthan: Auto driver challenges government officials, wins

For the middle class, which easily surrenders before babus even at a small instance of harassment, there is a thing or two to learn from Shantilal Bhoi, an autorickshaw driver who beat their every trick to obtain information through RTI. Despite being poor and barely literate, Mr Bhoi not only succeeded in getting the information but got it free as well.

How dare a poor and barely-literate autorickshaw driver challenge their authority is what babus in Rajasthan thought when Mr Bhoi filed an RTI to seek information about his land acquired by the Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation. They used every trick, including threats, to dissuade him from seeking the information but in vain. He alleges that RIICO officials in Udaipur asked him to visit the office “to inspect documents” where they allegedly threatened him. “The authorities humiliated and threatened me. They even asked what relevance the papers have for an anpadh-ganvaar like me,” he said.

When everything failed, the babus hatched another conspiracy to harass him. They prepared a reply consisting of 9,000 pages that weighed 39 kg and asked him to pay '17,482 that was apparently incurred in photocopying his documents despite the fact that being a BPL card-holder, Mr Bhoi had demanded exemption from fees and charges as per Rule 3 and 4 of the RTI Act. He took the case to the appellate authority and finally won.

Three months later, on Wednesday, he received the 9,000 page information he wanted, weighing around 39 kg. The bulky package was sent through the postal department, which called up to express its inability to deliver it at Mr Bhoi’s doorstep owing to its weight. So Mr Bhoi himself went to the post office to receive the documents and loaded them in his auto.

Mr Bhoi suspected foul play by RIICO authorities in acquiring is father’s 1.5-bigha land in Udaipur’s Bhoiyon-ki-Pancholi village to develop a colony. The reason for his suspicion was that there were others in the village whose land had not been acquired by the RIICO.

To get to the truth, Mr Bhoi, who has studied till Class 5, put three RTI applications in July-August last year seeking details of the total land acquired by RIICO for “colony development” in the area. Little did he know that it was not just going to be a horrendous task but outright harassment.

But now it is babus’ turn to be worried as Mr Bhoi has filed a corruption case against them in the anti-corruption bureau.