Corruption at the judges’ bench: My personal experience

Context: I was smoking a cigarette (I’m an occasional smoker, not habitual). Cops were passing by, saw me next to my car and decided to implicate in public smoking offence. I said there’s a pan shop right there selling cigarettes outside of the box (that’s illegal). Back and forth. Lots of tussle happened. (I’ll save that for some other time). Story: Was asked to visit the district court (Nampally) the next day. Reached at 8AM. A kind police constable (or so I thought) guided me to the correct bench. Judge called out my name along with 5 others. Asked us to pay the fine. And left. The assistant at the bench started collecting fine- Rs500 from each one of us. I went up to the police constable and told him I wasn’t carrying cash . He asked me to UPI. I did. And then asked for challan. He and the assistant said no challan. I calmly told him that the fine for first offence of public smoking is Rs 100. Not Rs 500. He panicked. The assistant panicked. I asked him to strike my deets off the records. He did. And also returned the money, with a wry smile and an apology. TLDR: the judges assistant was blatantly collecting excess money for fine. Our society is fucked. It’s time we go the Japanese way and focus on teaching ethics and morality to our kids. If you think of it, only a very thin fabric of fear separates today’s limping society from chaos.