The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has accused car designer and the founder of DC Design Dilip Chhabria, his sister and five others of laundering Rs18.13 crore in a complaint submitted last month before the special PMLA court. The court on Wednesday took cognisance of the complaint filed by the ED against Chhabria, his sister Kanchan, Nihal Bajaj, his finance manager, Jitendrakumar Yadav, resolution professional, Dilip Chhabria Design, DC Motor Works and DC Autosoft. The ED claimed: “During the course of PMLA investigation, various malpractices in operation of co-accused entity, M/s Dilip Chhabria Design Pvt Ltd, are revealed.
Accused with the aid of co-accused and family members / employees, orchestrated creation of dummy entity by the name of M/s DNK Dreamworks and same was used to illegitimately acquired additional shareholding in the company (DCDPL) without any cash consideration in FY 2014-15 and 2015-16 against merger of M/s DN Dreamworks with M/s DCDPL.” “He [Chhabria] has misused his position of being managing director of the company and by virtue of same, had siphoned off funds from M/s DCDPL in guise of exuberantly hiked salary, 2016 onwards (increase of 777.67% in salary from FY 2014-15 to FY 2018-19) as well as in form of exceptional hiked rental receipts from M/s DCDPL (from Rs3.6 lakh per annum in FY 2017-18 to Rs36 lakh per annum from 2018 onwards).”
'Chhabria launched a sports car in 2014'
The agency claimed that in 2014, Chhabria launched a sports car, DC Avanti Car. Syed Aafaq Khuram, former chief financial officer of Chhabria’s company, has exposed “multiple registration of DC Avanti Cars, as carried out by one M/s JSR Cars in order to obtain loans from various financial institutions in guise of manufacturing of Demo DC Avanti Cars.
However, the loan towards demo DC Avanti Car was never utilised for the intended purpose and was transferred to personal accounts of (Late) Bonito Chhabria (son of Dilip), Nihal Bajaj and used for personal expenses of Chhabria family members,” it said. “The modus-operandi of Mr. Dilip Chhabria and others it is clear that the company (DCDPL) would obtain finance from M/s BMW Finance in the name of DC Avanti Car (just by providing engine number and / or chassis number) or by showing the same as ‘Demo Car’, ie without any registration or temporary registration documents.
Production and sale of DC Avanti Car
Subsequently, the money received from the M/s BMW Finance would either be used in making a DC Avanti Car or would be utilised in other business / personal expense. If part of money is utilized in manufacturing of DC Avanti Car, the same would be subsequently sold to a customer (with concealment of information that the same is financed by M/s BMW India Financial Services and hypothecated to BMW India Financial Services), who would again avail financing of the vehicle from other finance institution or bank. Since, the Registration Certificate of the manufactured car is never submitted to Ms BMW Finance, the CERSAI system would allow hypothecation of the vehicle in the name of refinancing financing institution,” the ED claimed
