The Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) has stepped up its efforts to bring to book the owners of 2,000-odd luxury cars that have been registered in Puducherry using fake residential addresses and other documents. This follows reports the vehicles are being moved out of the State.
The move to shift the vehicles outside the State has taken the MVD by surprise as the amnesty scheme declared in the budget permits them to pay the one-time motor vehicle tax till April 30.
Sources in the MVD said the high-end cars that had been served notice by the MVD for tax evasion were hardly seen on the road these days. But, many make their presence felt in places of worship, and at the venues of marriage and social functions. Of the 2,000 erring motor vehicles identified by the MVD following reports of tax evasion, owners of only 200-odd cars registered in Puducherry have remitted the tax and re-registered their car in Kerala.
This prompted the MVD to act by taking the vehicles into custody and initiating steps to commence revenue proceedings if the tax was not remitted. Special squads set up by the MVD have seized 10 vehicles from Wayanad, Kozhikode, Kannur, Pathanamthitta and Kollam since Friday. A sum of ₹42.78 lakh was collected from three vehicles seized from Kollam and one from Pathanamthitta, Joint Transport Commissioner and Secretary, STA, Rajeev Puthalth told The Hindu .
The government has directed the MVD to go ahead with the drive, and we are on the job to trace these vehicles, he said. Those who pay the tax now would be exempted from other proceedings even if the vehicle was registered using fake documents in Puducehrry.
The RTOs have been instructed to accept the tax even if the owners do not have the No Objection Certificate from Puducherry. But, they should produce the original Registration Certificate and Invoice copy for remitting the tax. A four-member MVD team that probed the ₹300 crore tax evasion had found that life insurance policy certificates, notorised affidavits, fake addresses and even fake GST certification were used for registering premium cars costing above ₹20 lakh in Puducherry.
