Officials unearth racket in inter-state permit fee evasion

The routine inspection of a private bus registered in Kerala plying between Bengaluru and Velankanni (Tamil Nadu) has led the transport department to what is suspected to be a racket in inter-state permit fees.

When G P Krishnananda, Senior Inspector of Motor Vehicles, Transport Department, flagged down the bus near the Central Silk Board junction here around 10.30 pm on Thursday and asked the driver for the permit challan, a series of revelations awaited him. The bus was on its way to Madiwala to pick up passengers. Vehicles registered outside Karnataka have to pay Rs 30,000 to ply for a week in the State.

“The challan he showed me aroused my suspicion. The quality of the paper was different from that used in challans issued by the transport department. And on top of it, he offered to pay the permit fees again. This confirmed my doubts, as it was too big an amount to be paid twice,” Krishnananda said at a press conference here on Friday.

He immediately alerted Gayathri Devi, the Deputy Commissioner for Transport, Electronics City. The vehicle was taken to the Regional Transport Office (RTO). Meanwhile, officials began verifying the signatures on the challan. “I shared them with other officials by WhatsApp. We found the signatures didn’t match with those of officials in the transport department. The challan mentioned one Roopam Chakravarthy. But there is no such official in the transport department,” Krishnananda added.

The driver landed in further trouble when he stared receiving calls from a person who was asking him to hide a “black bag” kept in the bus. The transport inspector escorted the driver and the cleaner out of the bus and started searching it, along with other officials. Before long, they found a black kit bag in the luggage compartment, that contained many fake challans, an ink pad, seals and blank challans. The discovery just numbed them.

Transport Commissioner Rame Gowda told reporters that going by the number of fake challans seized, it was clear the bus was regularly plying between Bengaluru and Velankanni without paying a single rupee.

It belonged to an operator called Vaishnavi Travels. The owner is based in Nedumangad, Kerala, and the vehicle was given on a contract basis to Ajith, the main suspect.

Officials later realised that Ajith was none but the person who had called the driver, asking him to hide the bag. Ajith was in the bus when it was intercepted but sneaked out quickly. Transport officials didn’t know his identity then.

Gowda said a detailed investigation into the case would reveal whether there was a bigger racket. “There are enough number of checkposts but some buses take interior routes to bypass the checkposts. Every alternate day, we carry out  the enforcement drive,” he said.

Officials said the transport department needed to make the challans foolproof as anyone could fake them in their current format. Transport officials later filed a complaint at the Mico Layout police station.