The vehicle registration case has its roots in the Nuh area of Haryana, as the Solan police had arrested Sahun Khan, a Nuh resident, for his involvement in the racket last week. SP, Solan, Sai Dattatreya Varma said that seven persons had been arrested in the case that had come to light in February this year. Khan is the eight accused who was arrested on June 30 after the examination of technical evidence. The Solan police had earlier arrested six persons, who were acting as agents to facilitate unauthorised registration of vehicles on the VAHAN portal in lieu of money. While probing into the case, the police zeroed in on Gaurav Bhardwaj, who was registering vehicles on forged IDs. Sahun Khan had prepared a fake e-mail ID on which OTPs were received. He provided these OTPs to the main accused, Gaurav Bhardwaj.
The investigation also revealed that Sahun Khan was engaged in buying and selling vehicles and was actively assisting Bhardwaj in the fake registration work. Armed with the evidence, a Solan police team arrested Sahun Khan (40), a resident of Nuh and at present residing in Gurugram, on June 30. He was on July 1 produced before court, which remanded him in police custody for three days and later judicial custody on the expiry of the initial remand period. Khan’s earlier criminal record is being investigated. The police are also examining the role of other persons involved in this organised network by scrutinising their financial transactions and other technical and documentary evidence.
Dr Poonam Bansal, an official of the Regional Licensing Authority, Solan, had lodged a complaint with the Superintendent of Police on January 26 alleging systematic and grave irregularities in the registration of commercial vehicles bearing registration numbers HP-14D-4512, HP-14D-4582 and HP-14D-4586. These irregularities included the modification of laden weights and the transfer of ownership.
Besides, suspicious activities on the VAHAN portal, allegedly carried out by registration clerk Jitendra Thakur by misusing multiple user IDs and mobile phone numbers, had been detected. The police had registered an FIR n January 26 on the charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by DSP Ashok Chauhan to probe the matter.
During investigation, technical evidence revealed that the registration of the three vehicles had been done without adhering to statutory procedures. The mandatory inspection by a Motor Vehicle Inspector was not conducted and documentation was found to be incomplete. Furthermore, unauthorised alterations were systematically made to the vehicle registration data, ownership details and other technical entries on the VAHAN portal.