Shillong, Aug 3: The CBI on Tuesday registered a case against Meghalaya transport officials and a Mumbai based company director for charging exorbitant rates for the registration of high security registration plates (HSRPs) for vehicles.
The FIR was registered against Nitin Shah, director of Shimnit Utsch India Pvt. Ltd and some transport department officials for their alleged involvement in awarding contract for supplying high security registration plates at higher rates.
The matter relates to the alleged anomaly in 2005.
According to the FIR, the work was allotted to the company at five times more than the rates implemented in other parts of the country.
The state government gave permission for the CBI to take over the case.
Officials said that following the FIR, the CBI conducted raid in Shillong, Delhi, Mumbai and in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday.
An agency report from Delhi, quoting the CBI spokesperson RC Joshi, said the director of the company with the understanding of some officials of the state transport department rigged the tender process by giving bids through a few entities controlled by him to defeat the competitive bidding process.
The CBI found the bidders, who submitted documents, were controlled by the director of Shimnit Utsch India Pvt Ltd.
Besides Shimnit Utsch India Pvt Ltd, other bidders were Real Industries Ltd (Real Mazon India Ltd) and Tonnjes Eastern Security Technologies Pvt Ltd (Test Security Licence Plates Pvt Ltd). The companies were from Mumbai and Delhi.
The tender was floated by the state government in 2003.
Though there were protests in the past against the exorbitant rates of HSRPs, police had arrested the protestors and rejected the demand to reduce the rate.
