Karnataka transport department seizes several luxury cars in Bengaluru | Source: @ChristinMP_TOI  |  Photo Credit: Twitter
It is not news that India levies a hefty duty on imported vehicles in India. Don’t believe it? Well, here is some news for you: under the current set of rules, new imported cars in India are subject to an import duty of up to 100 per cent. The import duty on used cars, however, is a whopping 125 per cent. Yeah, it is a lot. Anyway, as you can imagine, some people try and get around this levy via different ways and methods. Other times, people skip out on paying the road tax when the ownership moves between states. In case you did not know, if the owner of the vehicle moves to a different state or the vehicle is sold to an owner in a different state where it will be used, law requires that the new owner apply for a new registration certificate and pay the requisite road tax in the new state. Considering it can be a little bit of a prolonged process and expensive, a lot of car owners typically avoid applying for new RC and such. To prevent that, officials often undertake drives to check the documents of luxury vehicles and that is precisely what the Karnataka Transport Department recently did. Yep, the state’s transport departmentment was recently on a drive to check registration papers of luxury cars in the region and guess what? They seized not one or two, but several premium and luxury cars in the state’s capital city.
The lot of these recently-seized cars in Bengaluru included a last-gen Rolls-Royce Phantom that was previously owned by Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan. Other brands on this list of seized luxury cars are Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Land Rover, and Porsche. The Karnatake transport department explained these cars were seized due to the lack of availability of the requisite documents.
As expected, some of these vehicles seized in Bengaluru were registered outside Karnataka. The state’s transport department claimed the owners of said vehicles have not paid road tax in Karnataka, resulting in a loss for the Karnataka exchequer. For now, the impounded vehicles are parked at the Road Transport Office (RTO) in Nelamangala, Bengaluru. Owners who come forward to claim their vehicles will likely pay hefty fines for violating the rules and failing to transfer the RC to Karnataka.