Stolen, recovered, auctioned: An SUV and the missing loan trail

Vadodara: A premium SUV stolen from a physically challenged cab operator, recovered by police, forcibly taken away on a highway and auctioned off has now landed India’s leading private bank and five of its officials in legal trouble.A court in Anand town has issued a summons to five executives and the bank.What began as a routine vehicle theft in 2016 unravelled into a tangled saga involving alleged forged documents, disputed hypothecation records, multiple ownership transfers, recovery agents, missing RTO files and claims of an organised racket operating around stolen vehicles.The complainant, Manish Madhvi, a resident of Bopal in Ahmedabad, had purchased the Toyota Fortuner in 2014 through a loan from Corporation Bank. Registered as a taxi, the SUV was the sole source of livelihood for Madhvi and his family.Two years later, the vehicle was stolen, leading to an FIR at Anandnagar police station in Ahmedabad. Police traced and recovered the SUV from Surat.Following legal proceedings, an Ahmedabad Rural court in 2017 ordered that Madhvi be given the custody.But what appeared to be the end of the ordeal soon turned into the beginning of a far bigger dispute.According to the complaint, the bank now summoned later surfaced claiming that it had financed the same Fortuner and that an active loan existed on the vehicle. Madhvi contested the claim, maintaining that the original and only genuine loan was with Corporation Bank.Then came the dramatic twist.On Feb 12, 2020, while the SUV was ferrying passengers from Ahmedabad to Vadodara, it was allegedly intercepted near Vagasi village in Anand district by recovery agents and persons linked to the bank. The complainant alleged that passengers and the driver were forced out and the SUV was driven away despite resistance.The dispute deepened when allegations emerged in the Anand court that forged documents had been used to manipulate the vehicle’s ownership and finance records.According to the complaint, fake no-objection certificates were allegedly created to remove Corporation Bank’s hypothecation entry before the vehicle was transferred on paper from Ahmedabad RTO to Surat RTO and linked to a fresh loan arrangement with accused bank.The SUV was subsequently allegedly auctioned off to a third party despite the earlier court order restoring custody to Madhvi.During the proceedings, questions were also raised over missing original RTO records and unexplained changes in registration details, including the vehicle later being converted from taxi registration to private registration.Advocate Vipul Shah, appearing for Madhvi, argued in the court that multiple buyers had been linked to transactions involving the same vehicle over the years. He contended that the case indicated a wider network involving stolen vehicles, forged ownership records and fraudulent loan processing.After examining witness testimonies, documentary evidence and depositions of bank officials, additional judicial magistrate First Class PN Jain in Anand observed that the allegations disclosed prima facie criminal offences extending beyond a mere civil dispute.In the order, the Anand court directed issuance of summons against Mihir Pendse, legal officer of Bank; Shyamal Anajwala, manager of Udhna branch in Surat; Ankit Bambhaniya, Surat-based collection manager and Anil Nair of the collection department in Navi Mumbai; Lubna Kazi, manager in the auction department in Navi Mumbai.Shah said, “The court observed that the material on record prima facie disclosed offences under provisions related to criminal conspiracy, theft, forcible seizure of property, cheating, forgery, use of forged documents and receiving stolen property under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS),”