The Mumbai police on Saturday arrested Bonito Chhabria, the son of ace car designer and founder of DC design Dilip Chhabria, for allegedly cheating them andcomedian Kapil Sharma to the tune of more than Rs 5 crore in a vanity van deal.
Acting on a complaint lodged by Sharma with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police in September 2020, the police summoned him to their officials for questioning. He was taken into custody after this was subjected to intense grilling by the police.
Bonito’s arrest came nearly 10 months after his shooting incident, Dilip Chhabria --who runs a car modification studio --was arrested late night for his alleged involvement in the dubious car finance and fake registration racket involving high-end luxury cars.
In his complaint, Sharma had told the police that he had paid more than Rs 5.20 crore to Junior Chhabria between March and May 2017 to design a vanity van for him. But as there was no progress made till 2019, Mr. Sharma had approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
Subsequently in December 2020 Bonito had raised a bill of Rs 1.20 crore to Kapil Sharma as parking charges for the vanity van, a development that prompted Kapil Sharma to approach the police and register his complaint.
Having conducted a preliminary enquiry (PE) vanity van case, the crime branch arrested Chhabria in another case pertaining to fraud last year. The PE was then converted into an FIR.
Bonito’s involvement in the Kapil Sharma cheating case came to light during the EOW investigations. On Saturday, he was called for questioning and he was arrested immediately after the CBI completed its investigations
It may be recalled that October 29 last year, the Mumbai police crime branch sleuths had arrested Bonito,while the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) intercepted the vehicle, laid a trap near the Hotel Taj Mahal at Colaba, intercepted the vehicle and seized it.
However, during the investigations, the police found that there was another car with the same engine and chassis number registered with Haryana RTO. The investigations have revealed Chabaria’s alleged involvement in the car finance and fake registration racket involving high-end luxury cars.
Sr Chhabria -- whose brand DC Design involved in modifying cars into luxury lounges launched India’s first sports car “the DC Avanti” and also showcased its second product – the TCA at the Auto Expo ---has been booked under Sections 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 120(B) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code or
IPC. The investigations have also revealed that Chhabria’s firm Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt. Ltd. (DCDPL) produced 127 DC-Avantis and sold them to customers in India and abroad.
The Crime branch sleuths suspect that many of these vehicles might have been involved in the car finance and fake registration racket.
The police said that multiple loans, averaging to Rs 42 lakh per vehicle, had been taken with respect to 90-odd cars by DCDPL, allegedly posing as customers for their own manufactured vehicles.
The modus operandi was to take loans, sometimes even multiple loans from financial institutions on cars and sell these hypothecated cars to other customers before or after availing the finance through the fraudulent means. The investigators estimated that the loss to the state exchequer could be around Rs 40 crore.
The investigators suspect that the DCDPL, which was set up in 1993 but went bankrupt in 2018, might have cheated many automobile finance companies and banks.
Apart from designing the lounge for the Mahindra Marazzo, DC Designalso released the lounge conversion of a slew of new car and it had several high-profile clients like Madhuri Dixit and Hrithik Roshan who reportedly had their vehicles customised from this brand. Some popular designs from DC Design include the lounge design kits of the Mahindra XUV500, Duster, Toyota Fortuner and Innova. Chhabria has also modified cars in the international market like Rolls Royce and Land Cruisers. His new brand DC2 has plans for launching electric cars in future.
Sr Chhabria -- who came into limelight in the nineties after he produced some fancy modified private cars for celebrities and vanity vans of Bollywood personalities – went onto design concept cars, luxury passenger buses, and even aircraft interiors.
DCDPL rolled out its first indigenously-made sportscar“the DC Avanti” in 2016, a year after securing approvals from the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI).
However, DCDPL ran into rough weather before the first sports car was launched, as cricketer Dinesh Karthik moved a Chennai-based Consumer Courts over the car dealer’s failure to refund the booking amount of Rs 5 lakh for a car costing nearly Rs 35 lakh.
