Thousands of automobiles were registered in the name of a government entity through phoney auctions, according to Anti-Corruption Establishment. Some workers of the provincial excise and taxes department registered these automobiles, causing the provincial exchequer to lose billions of rupees.
The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has uncovered a multi-year scandal involving the registration of used, smuggled, and stolen vehicles, primarily trucks and buses, on the basis of forged army auction vouchers by a gang made up of Punjab excise and taxation department officials and private individuals.
Fake registration numbers were assigned to decades-old buses and trucks re-manufactured at the Badami Bagh Lorry Adda, one of Punjab’s largest enterprises, according to the investigation.
The anti-graft watchdog, which began its investigation in 2017, discovered that the registration of 7,013 vehicles was questionable, with 4,000 of them being registered on the basis of forged vouchers, while the records of other vehicles could not be verified, resulting in a direct and indirect loss of Rs 300 billion to the exchequer.
However, in this case, the regular protocol was completely disregarded. The 7,013 automobiles were registered between 2015 and 2018, according to the anti-graft authority.
