A freak accident on the Western Express Highway (WEH) brought back memories of a superbike scam busted in 2009 and established that such two-wheelers continue to ply on the streets of Mumbai. The scam involved at least 600 superbikes whose registrations were cancelled because they were registered at fake or incorrect addresses and imported by flouting tax norms to avoid payment of 100% import duty.
Around 10.45am on January 6, Andheri resident Imran Abdul Sattar Saudagar knocked down a pedestrian with his brand new Suzuki GSXR (1000cc). While Imran fractured his finger, the victim suffered fractures on his right hand and left leg. Subsequently, a complaint was lodged at the Kherwadi police station.
After going through the documents, RTO officials realised that the registration of the bike was cancelled. It was, in fact, among 600 bikes imported in late 2008 in separate consignments as spare parts to avoid payment of 100% import duty.
“The bike was purchased as a used vehicle from a middleman in Pune for Rs4 lakh,” said an RTO official.
“Records show that the vehicle tax paid by the earlier ownerwas far lesser than what should have been paid. The bike would have cost anywhere between Rs5-Rs6 lakh. The tax amount should have been the same, but only Rs9,910 was paid,” the official said.
He said the vehicle was not registered in Imran’s name. Theowner is some Kalamboli-based person, records said. But the address is fake. The vehicle was first registeredin September 2008 in Pen RTO and the owner paid Rs600 as registration fees apart from the vehicle tax.
“It will not be allowed to ply again as its registration has been cancelled. Unlike routine cases in which we release bikes after the owners pay the tax money, this bike is part of a multi-crore scam. It is part of the 600 bikes imported in 2008. Many of them could not be traced as they were taken out of the city,” he said, adding that RTO officials cannot do anything about it.
After the scam came to light in 2009, the department of revenue intelligence (DRI) conducted detailed investigations and found that RTO officials were hand-in-glove with traders who imported the bikes in separate batches as spare parts. They got them registered illegally with fake or incorrect addresses and paid substantially low vehicle tax.
Subsequently, the Bombay high court directed the RTOs to cancel the registrations of all such bikes and render them illegal for driving on the country’s roads. However, as the incident in the first week of January has shown, such bikes continue to ply on the streets. There is a market for buyers and sellers of such bikes.
“After the state directed us to cancel the registration of such bikes, we sent notices to the owners asking why the registrations should not be cancelled. Most people did not respond to the notices and so, we cancelled their registrations,” said a senior official from the Pen RTO, which saw over 400 such bikes registered illegally.
The RTO could not recover unpaid taxes either. “The tax was calculated on the basis of invoice bills that were produced at the time of registration. When we found that the bills were bogus, we approached the customs department to know prevailing market rates to reassess the vehicle tax. However, since the registration of the bikes was cancelled we could not recover the taxes,” the official said.
Imran is in deeper trouble because of the accident. “An FIR has been lodged against him and investigations are on,” said a police officer from the Kherwadi police station. “The process of registering the bike in my name is on. I bought it from Pune and was not aware about its registration being cancelled. I cannot be held responsible for violation of norms in the past,” a nervous Imran told DNA.
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