Jaipur: For the suave middle class that easily surrenders before babus on a small instance of harassment, there is a thing or two to learn from Shantilal Bhoi, an auto rickshaw driver who beat their every trick to obtain information through RTI.
Despite being poor and barely literate, Shantilal not only succeeded in getting the information but got it free as well.
How dare a poor and illiterate auto rickshaw driver challenged their authority, is what babus in Rajasthan thought when Shantilal’s filed RTI to seek information about his land acquired by Rajasthan State Indus-trial Development and Investment Cor-poration.
They used every trick including threats to dissuade him from seeking the information but in vain. He alleged that RIICO officials in Udaipur asked him to visit the office to inspect documents where they allegedly threatened him.
When everything failed the babus hatched another conspiracy to harass him. They prepared a reply consisting 9,000 pages that weighed 39 kg and asked him to pay Rs 17,482 that were apparently incurred in photocopying the documents. He took the case to the appellate authority and finally won.
Three months later, on Wednesday he received 9,000 paged information he wanted, which weighed around 39 kilograms.
The bulky information was sent through the postal department, however, the receiving post office called up to express their inability to deliver it at his door steps owing to the weight. So Shantilal went himself to the post office to receive the documents and loaded them in his auto.
