Updated: December 30, 2020 4:20:28 pm
Mumbai police arrested famous automaker and designer Dilip Chhabria on Monday in connection with the cheating and forgery charges made against him.
Who is Dilip Chhabria?
Dilip Chhabria is a household name when it comes to modified vehicles and his trademark ‘DC’ design has been highly sought after and has several celebrities as his clients. He is also credited with launching the DC Avanti, known as India’s first sports car in 2016. His company Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt Ltd was incorporated in 1993 and launched the DC Avanti in 2016 after formal certification from the Research Association. Automotive of India (ARAI) in March 2015. They have sold nearly 120 cars of this type across the country and the world.
Why did the Mumbai police arrest him?
Joint Police (Crime) Commissioner Milind Bharambe said Tuesday that they found that nearly 90 DC Avanti vehicles made by Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt Ltd (DDCPL) were used for fraudulent financing. They found that DDCPL used various loans averaging Rs 42 lakhs per car. The company would pose as customers of its own manufactured cars and would borrow from non-bank finance companies (NBFCs) that would not be repaid. These vehicles were subsequently sold to other customers after obtaining financing through fraudulent means without the customers’ knowledge.
Was there a registration scam involved too?
Yes. Police found that most of the 90 vehicles were registered with two or sometimes three RTOs from various states. For example, the complainant in the case is a person who lives in Tamil Nadu and whose DC Avanti machine and chassis number were also registered in Tamil Nadu and Haryana RTO. Police believe they would use these multiple registration numbers to obtain more loans that they did not intend to repay.
How did the scam come to light?
It came to light after the person from Tamil Nadu who had bought the DC Avanti, worth Rs 42 lakh, committed a traffic violation. When he was being challenged, the traffic officer told him that his vehicle was also shown as registered in Haryana. Checking the vahan website, he discovered that the vehicle was indeed registered with two RTOs. Since he had bought the sports car from Chhabria, he kept trying to contact him, but the latter was evasive. It was then that he came to Mumbai to confront him that the Mumbai police received a notice in this regard, took the author’s statement and registered an FIR against Chhabria.
Is there a loophole in the system that allowed two RTOs to assign registration numbers to the same chassis and machine number?
Yes. By law, a chassis and machine number can be registered from an RTO at one point. It cannot be registered in two places. The police will write to the RTOs in question so they can plug the loopholes in the system.
Do the police suspect the involvement of other people?
Apart from those from the Chhabria company, the police are investigating the involvement of three or four NBFCs that granted them loans. In some cases, the police discovered that the NBFC had authorized the loan even before the vehicle was registered. Police suspect that some NBFC employees may have known about the scam and will soon be calling them for questioning.
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The police also spoke about investigating customs evasion. How does that relate to the case?
Police discovered that various parts, such as the vehicle’s engine, were imported from abroad. In addition, some of the vehicles that they sold to citizens of other countries did so at a lower value than those sold in India. The police believe it could be related to customs duty evasion and will investigate.
Has Chhabria broken the law in the past?
While no police case has been recorded against him in Mumbai according to the police, he was sued by cricketer Dinesh Karthik in 2015 when the latter approached the consumer court stating that the Chhabria company has not reimbursed the lakh of Rs 5 that you had paid as reserve amount even after you did not find the satisfactory vehicle after doing a test drive and returned it
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