- Dilip Chhabria’s son has been arrested, in connection with a case of cheating registered against him on the basis of comedian Kapil Sharma’s complaint.
- Sharma told the police that he paid 5 crore rupees to Bonito Chhabria between March and May 2017, to design a vanity bus for him.
- The Mumbai Police is still investigating the case against him, his company directors, his son, and other employees of the company as well as NBFCs.
The son of Dilip Chhabria, the head of Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt Ltd whose company used to sell modified cars to celebrities, has been arrested in connection with a case of cheating registered against him on the basis of comedian Kapil Sharma’s complaint.
Sharma has told the police that he paid 5 crore rupees to Bonito Chhabria between March and May 2017 to design a vanity bus for him. But as there was no progress made till 2019, Sharma had approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
However, Chhabria last year sent a bill of Rs 1.20 crore to Sharma as parking charges for the vanity bus. After that Sharma approached the police and lodged his complaint.
“During the investigation of the case, the role of Bonito Chhabria came to light. Therefore, he was called for questioning and later placed under arrest by the crime branch,” he said.
Dilip Chhabria came to the limelight last year for a multi-crore car financing fraud. His company used to sell DC Avanti, known as India’s first sports car. Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt Ltd was incorporated in 1993 and launched the DC Avanti in 2016 after formal certification by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) in March 2015. They sold more than 100 such cars around the world.
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Later the same car was sold to a new customer with a fresh chassis number registered at a different RTO, without telling them that there is a loan on the vehicle. The fraud was revealed when a Tamil Nadu-based customer broke the traffic rules and the traffic police told him that his vehicle is registered in Haryana. Later, he checked the details on the Vaahan app and found that the vehicle was actually registered in both Haryana and Tamil Nadu.
He came to Mumbai to confront Chhabria and this is when Mumbai police got the clue and registered a case. Through investigations revealed that few employees of NBFCs were involved in the scam and that the same trick was adopted to sell more than 90 cars. Also, it was found that Chhabria sold some of his sports cars to foreign customers at a price lower than that in India, which means involvement in custom duty evasion.
The employees of the company, Dilip Chhabria, and his son were found to be involved in many fraudulent activities. They were running the company with the very purpose to cheat the NBFCs and customers in order to make big money in a very short period of time.
In his statement, Chhabria pinned the blame on his “ex-partner and co-investor in DC Designs Pvt. Ltd. (DCDPL), namely Mr Kiran Mulchand, who had a controlling 52 percent share in the said company”. He mentions that Mulchand had assured an infusion of Rs 150 crores in DCDPL to help the company manufacture sports cars.
He continued, “Mr Kiran Mulchand, after acquiring the position of Director in DCDPL, sold four Avanti cars to himself in 2016 under the supervision of erstwhile CFO Mr Afaq Sayeed, whom he appointed. Thereafter, the CFO, under the instructions of Kiran Mulchand, hypothecated these four cars to an NBFC, along with some other cars of DCDPL.”
The Mumbai Police is still investigating the case against him, his company directors, his son, and other employees of the company as well as NBFCs.