IT Woes-2

I have to write this. Reading is ofcourse your privilege. Or prerogative, if it pleases you:-) A short essay on "2 hours at income tax office". Read at leisure, if you wish!

As it was destined on that fateful day, I visited Bangalore IT office with my auditor to trace the missing cheque of my IT refund on 10 March'05. This was my maiden visit to income tax office and it was an eye opening experience. Nothing beats the thrill, excitement, agony, despair and helplessness that you experience in a Indian govt office. This blog stems from first had experience and every word is authentic. So here it goes. We had to wait outside the IT officers (ITO) cabin for half hour watching with growing impatience, while she fussed on absolutely un-important things and disappeared frequently. She looked bored to her bones and was giving everyone a pitiful look. The secretary was running the whole show in her absence. He looked street-smart. Know what I mean? In Hindi its called 'Shyana'.
We got an audience with Her almighty eventually, and waited with baited breath for Her to look up from the important looking papers and glance at us. Finally she did and with a disdainful look asked with eyes "What?" My auditor, being experienced, forwards her my request papers without a word. She looks at it and asks "Who is Mr Amit?" I say meekly, Ma'm its me. Then she asks whats the problem! Thats when my tempers started simmering. After reading my application she asks whats the problem? Then some small talk went on where I pleaded and explained my case that I have not received my cheque and I wish to trace if it has come back or can they issue me a new one as I was submitting an indemnity bond. She keeps cross questioning all the while. Then she starts arguing her case with so many classic babu type comments that I hardly remember since I was too shocked to hear them. At one point of the time she made a statement " People wait for years for their refund cheques, and you are tired in just six months!" My jaw dropped at this! I was spellbound, tempers were at boiling point, but I controlled, I realized just in time that just one counter argument from me on this and she would raise her hands and show me the door! In fact she did ask me to go and complain elsewhere and not trouble her. Then I literally begged and pleaded at her to at least search her records.
She finally pitied and tried searching her records in a software which seemed to crash every now and then. She hardly knew how the software worked, and her secretary kept coaching her. She was taking his opinion on what to do on my case!!! She also rejected my indemnity bond saying such legal papers have no sanctity now a days and also lectured me on how Indian mentality is. We are all thieves she said!! She also refused to accept that my PAN number was not issued in Bangalore!! She had never seen of that series of numbers! Then after lot of persuasion and pleading she agreed to search through their paper records and after much haggling, coffee and disappearances she managed to trace the bar code of the speed post by which the cheque was sent to me. I then told her that my auditor has already done that search and we know the cheque was sent but it has never reached me! Then she shouted saying if you know it was sent, then why are u complaining!! We were back to square one after 1.5 hours of haggling!! I again explained her the problem and believe me then she understood my case, and her simple solution was " Go to a net cafe, find Indian postal dept website, then find their customer care number, give them this bar code, try to trace what happened to that post, if required go to postal dept office, talk to postal manager and then come back with the result Its my responsibility to trace that cheque, they cannot keep trace for so many cases!! Then only she can take further action!! "
I was about to cry, but controlled my emotions. Tears were was not due to dejection of not getting the cheque. I was way beyond that state. I simply wanted to f**k her hard and kick her wide a**, but knew that I just could not do it! Sheer helplessness!
Then she got a phone call, and someone with same case as mine was enquiring. She told the guy on phone that they send the refund cheques on whatever address is associated with the PAN number and not the one which you file in your returns, because they want to avoid extra work of typing addresses written on return forms!! Then it struck to me like gravity struck Newton! I knew that the address associated with my pan number was my old and outdated address of my earlier office. The moment it dawned, I quickly wound up and told her that I would take her advice and try to trace the post with the postal dept and come back with results! I went to my old office and found the cheque lying innocently in a carton containing hundreds of old mails! I simply smiled with a tear trickling down (I guess, but am not sure). The dispatch guy looked at me with utter amazement! I just said "Thanks" to him and opened the envelop, only to find that the cheque had already crossed the validity period of three months and it took only nano-seconds to realize that I will have to visit that hell of a IT office once again in front of that Almighty goddess and once again plead her that I was guilty and she was righteous and her good self should pity and give me a boon and re-validate the cheque! I am trying to gather courage before I go there again next week. Wish me good luck.
p.s: Though it was partially my mistake of not updating address on my PAN card, I still dread what must be happening to genuine cases and people whose cheques are really misplaced! The register with about 5000 names of such pending cases stood silent testimony to this fact!