Amritsar: Day after Vigilance Bureau raid at office, motor vehicle inspector grilled

Tribune News Service

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, August 24

A day after the raid at the Motor Vehicle Inspector’s office here, vigilance officials grilled Motor Vehicle Inspector Davinder Singh for three hours here on Wednesday.

Vigilance officials inquired about the modus operandi for issuing the fitness certificates for the commercial vehicles.

It has been reliably learnt that fitness certificates of hundreds of vehicles were issued without proper checking. The vigilance has confiscated the records pertaining to different periods for examination.

The Vigilance Bureau had exposed a scam of issuing fitness certificates to the vehicles without physical checking after taking bribe in Sangrur.

Following this, the Punjab Government ordered conducting simultaneous raids in different districts, including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Faridkot, Mansa, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur.

During the raid, the vigilance nabbed Motor Vehicle Inspector posted at Jalandhar Naresh Kaler and two private agents. The bureau also recovered Rs 12.5 lakh of bribe amount and confiscated documents pertaining to suspicious issuance of fitness certificates to vehicles.

Vigilance SSP Varinder Singh said all documents seized from the MVI office were being scrutinised and appropriate action would be taken following completion of probe.

He said raids were conducted following the orders from the Punjab Government though there were verbal complaints of staff issuing fitness certificates to different types of commercial vehicles without following prescribed rules of the state government.

According to the norms, the vehicles are to be physically inspected by the MVI staff before issuing the fitness certificate, which is mandatory to ply the vehicle on road. Nevertheless, the Regional Transport Authority and MVI staff was allegedly passing the vehicles only on the basis of documents without physical inspections of vehicles, it is alleged.

Records confiscated

• During questioning, vigilance officials inquired about the modus operandi for issuing fitness certificates for the commercial vehicles
• It has been learnt that fitness certificates of hundreds of vehicles have been issued without proper checking
• The vigilance has confiscated the records pertaining to different periods for examination
• Vigilance SSP Varinder Singh said all documents seized from the MVI office were being scrutinised and appropriate action would be taken following completion of probe

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