150 RCs made with fake papers in Indora
Our Correspondent
NURPUR, FEBRUARY 10
After Nurpur, the Indora Registration Licensing Authority (RLA)-cum-SDM has also identified 150 vehicles registered with fictitious documents, including tempered Aadhaar Cards. These had been uploaded on the Vahan portal of the Transport Department.
The motive behind the vehicle registration was to save road tax and register Bharat Stage-4 (BS-4) vehicles banned by the apex court from April 1, 2020.
FIRs likely
If the owners fail to verify their documents, their RCs will be cancelled. FIRs can also be registered against them.
Enquiries made by The Tribune reveal that the RLA has blacklisted registration certificates (RCs) of the identified vehicles and served seven-day notices on the owners. Most RCs have been obtained between April 1 and September 2020 when manual documentation was allowed for procuring RCs of the vehicles.
The department had stopped manual documentation in September. The nexus between agents and the staff of the RLA could not be ruled out.
Sources reveal that some agents at Nurpur and Indora are the master in tempering with invoices of the vehicles to reduce their purchase value so that token tax can be evaded. SDM Somil Gautam said as soon as the matter came to his notice, he conducted a prime facie inquiry and found the owners of 150 vehicles, who had procured RCs with fictitious documents.
Gautam told The Tribune that under Section 55 of the Motor Vehicle Act, the vehicle owners had been asked to verify the documents submitted by them. “If they fail to verify their documents, their RCs will be cancelled. FIRs can also be registered against them,” he said.
Meanwhile, the SDM also removed the registration clerk from the RLA office today and recommended departmental action against him to the Deputy Commissioner, Kangra.
