Fight for your rights! - Update 20

Yesterday the milk vendor came to the house at night. Mr sweetness himself. He wanted to know whether we have not dropped the case against him. I told him we had dropped the IPC case after he gave his apology, but the Consumer Court case had gone against him and he has to pay a fine. First he denied knowing anything. So I told him that its OK. If he says that he has not received anything from the court, he should not pay. The court will deal with him. Then he started his story of poor man, he didn't know what he was saying, he was very sorry, blah blah blah. Since the day of the incident bad luck has been following him around. He is a very helpful person in the neighborhood, in fact, he has helped the owner of my house build this house, he helps people out of a genuine feeling, doesn't even ask for money. When he saw that I wasn't convinced, he said to come to his shop and collect the fine money from him. Indeed? Nothing doing. I told him to come and deliver to my house, which he said he will do next Monday.

Then he said that "if he had known that we would file the case, etc against him he would never have behaved this way" and repeated this a few times. This to me is the most important learning from this incident. This is an amazing thought. The reason people like him act and behave this way is because people like you and me do not raise an objection. Is this surprising? Of course not. Its something I have known... and I wanted to prove, as I mentioned many posts ago, that I wanted to call his bluff. It pains me that we don't raise a voice against the many injustices we face everyday. The next time this guy will be very very careful with everybody. A small victory but one I hope that will help other people to emulate.

This story is not over though. In the order passed by the Consumer Court, the judges have written a very strong statement against KMF for allowing this incident to happen and for the overcharging. We intend to get this published in the newspaper. KMF people were very afraid of the bad publicity resulting from an adverse Consumer Court judgement, which is why they had visited us many times to ask us to take back the case. We had refused. My wife had met the Managing Director of KMF over this incident. Now we have to meet him again and give him a copy of the judgement. Let the fun begin.

Do the meek inherit the earth? Yeah right, and pigs have wings and can fly.

Read Fight for your rights! - Update 19.