PANJIM: After a harrowing experience while travelling in a tourist taxi, Adv Mangesh Dabholkar from Mumbai demanded action against a taxi driver for attempting to fleece money from him and to cancel the taxi permit.
The incident occurred on Tuesday morning when Adv Dabholkar along with his colleague had booked a taxi to proceed from Mopa Airport to the Sindhudurg District Court at Kudal in Maharashtra. On the way, the taxi driver stopped for a tea break and demanded Adv Dabholkar to pay additional Rs 1,000 as State tax to the Maharashtra RTO to cross the border. Adv Dabholkar refused to pay stating that he has been travelling regularly to attend court matters and had never been charged additional money by the service provider.
According to Adv Dabholkar, the taxi driver refused to budge and halted for almost 90 minutes and thereby he missed out his court case. Adv Dabholkar told the driver that he will pay the additional money only if the RTO at Banda check-post confirms it. On reaching at Banda, the RTO inspector said that Rs 1,000 State tax was applicable for tourist taxis not having permits and is not applicable to the particular taxi as the permit of the said taxi would end on September 13.
But while returning, the taxi driver stopped the vehicle about nine-km before the airport and demanded Rs 1,000. The driver contacted his owner Somnath Korgaonkar, who in turn told the lawyer to pay the money or else he would lodge an FIR against him. Korgaonkar told the driver to take the taxi to the Pernem Police Station where the police told Korgaonkar that he cannot charge additional money from customers. But the taxi owner was in no mood to listen till he relented after the lawyer stood firm.
When contacted, Adv Dabholkar said that only after he introduced themselves as lawyers the taxi owner and perhaps the police relented and wondered what the ordinary citizens would be facing. He has demanded action against the taxi owner for attempting to fleece money from them.
