Clean Chits!

Clean Chit to Clean Energy

1. Gurumurthy gives clean chit to Gadkari,

2. RIL’s Nagothane plant gets clean chit from AERB,

3. Sushma gives clean chit to Reddy Brothers,

4. Govt’s clean chit to Thackrey
5. Clean Chit to IPL team owners.

I wonder what these ‘clean chits’ are? What are the size, texture & colour of these chits? Are they visible, touchable?

To me the chit is a bit of paper & if nothing is written on it, it is a clean chit! I carry many chits in my pocket-small, large, crumpled, folded and creased. Let me see at the moment in my pocket - there are two chits mentioning house-hold goods to be brought today, one crumpled chit has a mobile no. written in a foreign hand, one has an address on it, fifth one has a date & address of no use now as date is gone & last one is of tailor but none of these are clean!

Chits come in handy for the candidates & the baldy members of interview board. All candidates must try & send-in recommendatory chits via godfathers to the baldy members of board for favourable results in time. The baldy members glance over these chits discreetly. Once i recommended a junior officer for promotion by sending a chit to the Zonal Manager The Baldy who headed the interview board. He immediately came out & did show me 6 chits of recommendations from his coat-pocket favouring other candidate with a wicked smile ‘you are late’!. So be careful while sending your recommendations by chit.

My NRI friend informs that long time back a person in US could buy things without money. The retailer would list the items & prices on a chit, total them up & send to customer along with goods. Once purchaser paid off this chit it was referred to as a clean chit.

There are Chits or Chit Funds also an informal or part formal credit & saving scheme in India. Very large number of them approx 3000 are in Thrissur district alone. For governance of such funds there is a Kerala Chitties Act 1975 besides central act The Chit Fund Act 1982.

Chit, voucher, bill, note, slip, rukka, hundi, parchi, pawati all appear to be synonymous. Here context or usage may be important to construe the meaning. For example, ‘The police checked the background & gave the man a clean chit, absolved him, freed him of charges’ etc.

It was a pleasant surprise when research revealed the origin of the word ‘Chit’ in Harper Collins Hinglish Directory. It says that the word ‘Chit’ originated in 18^th century from earlier Hindi ‘chitty’ or ‘cittha’. This in turn has roots in Sanskrit ‘citra’ meaning ‘marked’ or ‘coloured’.  

   

So ‘Like’ this write up & give me a Clean Chit - in return you will get a Thanks Chit!