Article - 83 Week 49 Penalising Mindset:

Article - 83  Week 49

Penalising Mindset:

"In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organised robbery?" - Saint Augustine

At the drop of a hat, you could be penalised in the corridors of Customs in India. The word 'penalty' stems from a retributive & abusive power system. It's directed at people who cross the line of the rule. However, when no rule is broken this 'Penalty'  should not be imposed. Any 'Penalty' so imposed, without any clear violation on technical, intuitive or textual interpretation of the rules,  stamps a traumatic stigma in addition to the pecuniary difficulty on the people. Such arbitrariness is crudely oppressive.

As an example, if you missed a 'zero' on the third place after the decimal on the BL, the penalty imposed could be to the order of Rs 20,000/ or even higher. The Officer could insist that the typing should have been 3.840 Metric Tons, in place of 3.84 Metric Tons. The "zero'' on the third place has no significance, from any accounting or mathematical perspective. But not from the perspective of our Officer in question. He thought that the Rule was transgressed. And imposed a steep penalty, by quoting a Section that barely relates to the issue at hand. Governance is reduced to whims and moods of the people. Was he arithmetically or morally challenged? The answer to the question would do little to the sad consequence. 

This cranky despot attitude by our Customs Officials is a matter of extremely regressive. The juggernaut of discretion and arbitrariness seems to pick up steam along with the protests from the public to bring it down. It is difficult to say, what direction this monster is going to take in the future with a crippled government on shaky morals. The bureaucracy is utterly confused. It refuses to change, while fretting and fearing an uncertain future repercussion. Such arbitrariness is a result of ambiguous rules, suspect intents of the formulators, a great deal of opaqueness, unaccountability of bureaucracy to the people they serve and too much regulations. 

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Brgds

Capt Rath