Anyway, so no forms available anywhere and the deadline approached. The Chamber of Commerce in a nearby town convinced a local printer to reproduce the forms (Xerox or Photocopying had not yet arrived in India). I remember standing in a long line and paying two Rupees just to obtain the form.
Aha, but they were not the "Government Approved Forms"! Because they were printed on ordinary paper (the official forms from prior years had a greenish tinge to it), the tax collector refused all the tax returns that year. He and his brother-in-law then took untold amount of bribes to provide tax extensions and distribute the "proper forms".
In this context, you must understand the courage of my father, who told his only customer, The Indian Institute of Science, that he will not follow the "Government Approved Forms" for conducting business. "The only solution for you is to advise your faculty and researchers not to seek my services"-- my father wrote in 1982. What a free spirit!
The "Government Approved Forms" were to take a much uglier avatar in the later years in India before privatization started in 1990s. I particularly recall that the "Government Approved Forms for Application for Loan" were being sold in the black market for as much as Rs. 2000 under the "Loan Festival" (Loan Mela) bribe orgies arranged by Janardhan Poojari.
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I found a picture of a "Government Approved Form" that I took in year 2000 to make a ticket reservation (shown below) from Bangalore to Goa, a distance of 450 miles. It asks for such details as date of birth, gender, local contact address, local telephone number, destination address, destination telephone number, date, time (!), first number of passengers, then their names, where each of the passenger starts and ends the journey, class... It even asks where I will go afater visiting Goa.
