Same Luxury Car, multiple registrations
When one thinks of careers in India, ‘luxury car designer’ is not an option that comes to many people.
Dilip Chhabria is the pioneer of this career in India. His flagship company, Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt. Ltd, was registered as early as 1993. Since then, he has added style and customisation to luxury cars.
In 2015, the company launched DC Avanti, a concept sports car that was manufactured by Dilip Chhabria’s company.
In December 2020, a traffic constable in Tamil Nadu stopped an Avanti owner for breaking a traffic rule. When the registration was checked, the traffic policeman was surprised to note that a car with the same chassis number was also registered in Haryana.
This, and some other complaints, led the police to investigate the matter. To their surprise, they found that the company was:
- Registering the same car in multiple states
- Buying its own cars to show sales.
- Taking multiple car loans against the same car.
How was this made possible?
The Road Transport Authority of each state is independent, because road transport and taxes on road transport come under the state list.
This meant that there was no central list of vehicles registered in India. All the states maintained their own list and reporting was done at the state level.This loophole allowed DC to take multiple registrations for the same vehicles in various states.
In each state, the buyer would approach, not a formal bank, but a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), for a car loan to finance the purchase. NBFCs can give loans and are not subject to the same scrutiny as a bank. Therefore, their own verification for a customer is not as strict as a formal bank’s. This is how they were able to get more than one loan on the same car.
Then, a national database of vehicles was launched in India. Because of this database, the police can now track vehicles by their chassis or engine number also. Dilip Chhabria has now been arrested by the Mumbai police and investigations are underway.
