New Delhi, April 21 The Delhi High Court has dismissed an anticipatory bail plea filed by a clerk accused of being part of an inter-state vehicle theft and registration racket involving tampering of chassis numbers and use of fake documents.
A single-judge Bench of Justice Girish Kathpalia denied relief to the accused, Gaurav Bhardwaj, in connection with an FIR registered by the Crime Branch under multiple provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
As per the prosecution, the accused, while posted as a clerk in the Road Transport Authority in Himachal Pradesh's Bilaspur, was allegedly part of a syndicate involved in vehicle thefts, tampering with their chassis numbers, and getting them registered on the basis of forged documents across different states.
The prosecution alleged that the accused had access to the email credentials of the SDM concerned, which enabled him to retrieve OTPs from the Vaahan portal and facilitate fake registrations. It was further claimed that most of the vehicles fraudulently registered in Bilaspur were assigned registration numbers pertaining to vehicles registered in Telangana.
During the hearing, the defence argued that the prosecution’s case was unreliable, contending that registration of vehicles brought from Telangana to Himachal Pradesh could only be carried out manually and not through an online process.
It was also submitted that mere Customer Application Forms (CAF) could not establish that the accused had accessed the Vaahan website.
Opposing the bail plea, the prosecution relied on a communication received from Telangana authorities stating that the registration numbers under investigation were fake and did not exist in the official records of the RTO, Hyderabad.
Indicating his continued involvement in the alleged racket, it was claimed that the accused processed multiple registration files beyond office hours and continued to obtain OTPs through his successor even after his transfer.
The investigation also revealed that several vehicles processed by the accused were stolen and had tampered registration identities.
The Delhi High Court was apprised that the accused was absconding and that his custodial interrogation was necessary to unearth the larger conspiracy spanning multiple states.
Dismissing the anticipatory bail plea, Justice Kathpalia recorded the scale of the alleged offence and the necessity of custodial interrogation.
"Keeping in mind the expanse of the offence and the stage of investigation, I do not find it a fit case to grant anticipatory bail, thereby depriving the investigating officer an opportunity to carry out custodial interrogation," the judge said.
The Delhi High Court also recorded that the accused has been placed under suspension and that further analysis of data relating to vehicles registered during his tenure is underway. Accordingly, the anticipatory bail application was dismissed.
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