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.IN
Gold, Samosas, Your Wife, The Collapsing Rupee, and RTI
The Public Information Officer (PIO),ID No. (For official use)
RTI Cell, SPUWAC,
Nanak Pura
Delhi
Name of Applicant — Manish Udar
Address — House number 0123456, ABCD Colony, New Delhi - 1100xx
Concerned Department — SPUWAC, Nanak Pura
Subject - Application for seeking information under the Right to Information Act, 2005
Background:
1) India is importing more gold than any other country in the world. Eighty billion dollars worth of gold was imported in the previous year. This is as much money as the net worth of the entire Tata business empire globally. This is more money than the amount which has been lost in all the scams since God knows when. Most of this gold is purchased by people on the occasion of weddings, or for their wife or daughter-in-law.
2) The national currency is spiralling downwards in the last couple of weeks. The news today is that it has gone down to 60 rupees to the dollar. Eighty billion dollars was worth four lakh thirty two thousand crores a few days back. Now it is worth 4 lakh eighty thousand crores.
3) Along with petroleum imports, gold import is the biggest reason for the current account deficit in India, and is causing inflation and other macroeconomic negativity. The Finance Minister has appealed to people to buy less gold, only a few days ago.
4) Buying gold for one's bride/daughter-in-law/wife is not a wise thing to do, as you in the CAW Cell are aware. Allowing her to bring gold at the time of wedding or afterwards is equally unwise. This is for the simple reason that the percentage of marriages which turn sour is increasing every year, and for daughters-in-law in our country it is as easy as buying a packet of samosas to register an FIR against her in-laws under section 498a (cruelty for the purpose of getting dowry), section 406 (misappropriation (by husband or his parents) of Streedhan (gold/dowry/gifts and property given by husband or his relatives to wife)), and section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. In total, these allegations are punishable by seven or eight years of hard labour in prison.
5) Even if a husband/groom's family makes a list of gifts exchanged at the time of wedding and gets it signed by witnesses, it is totally guaranteed that an FIR will be registered against them if the wife makes an allegation under the sections mentioned above. They will have to go through jail, bail, interrogation, police custody, judicial custody, endless rounds of police stations, courts lawyers, and prolonged mental torture.
6) The only way to avoid registration of an FIR under section 406 is to take or give no gifts (including gold) at the time of wedding, AND to get this fact recorded by witnesses. This also reduces the credibility of any allegations made under section 498a. Section 34 gets eliminated in the process.
7) So it is clear that buying gold for your bride, or letting her buy gold for herself, or letting her parents buy gold for her has a great potential to become the first step in your path to jail and bail, or just jail without bail, or police station plus lawyer's office plus court plus bail without jail. It is a thankless endeavour. Gold has led to a lot of misery in the lives of Indians, just as it did in the lives of North and South Americans, Africans, Australians, and indeed Indians over the course of history.
8) If Delhi Police uses a portion of its advertising budget to put out big advertisements in newspapers mentioning the facts listed from 1) to 7) above, it will do yeoman's service to the nation, will destroy the national hunger for gold, and will alleviate the misery of crores of women also. I am mentioning women here because claims regarding the misery of men do not appeal to our lawmakers and media, and are invariably discarded as lies.
INFORMATION REQUIRED
1. Does the logic (or any sub-set or super-set thereof, or any intersecting set) mentioned in the "background" above appear valid to your department?
2. I state that the information sought does not fall within the restrictions contained in the Act and to the best of my knowledge it pertains to your office; and please give the information in typed form.
3. A fee of Rs. 10/- is being paid
Dated: 20th June 2013
Manish Udar