Mysuru: Vidyaranyapuram Police have booked a case against an Assistant Sales Manager of Sagar Autotech Skoda car showroom on Manandavadi Road for providing fake RTO records and fake registration numbers and cheating his customers of lakhs of rupees. The complaint has been lodged by the showroom authorities.

On July 31, S. Ramesh, who works as Assistant Executive Engineer of Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Company (CESC) at Chamundipuram sub-division, booked a Skoda  Rapid diesel car and paid an advance of Rs. 20,000.

Accordingly, D. Kiran the assistant sales manager of the showroom, told Ramesh that the car would cost Rs. 15,01,497 including the RTO charges. There was an exchange offer at the showroom and Ramesh opted to exchange his old Indigo car that was bought by the showroom for Rs. 3.5 lakh.

Ramesh then paid the remaining Rs. 11,73,700 through a bank and had obtained the car. Ramesh had totally paid Rs. 15.70 lakh including the value of his old Indigo car. Later, he paid a registration fee of Rs. 2,237 and a tax of Rs. 2,21,477 to RTO East and Kiran had taken the payment. Ramesh was allotted a registration number of KA-55 N-9870 and accordingly, the number plate was handed over to him.

Trouble began when Ramesh got an SMS from the showroom on Oct. 13 from the number of a certain Nanditha that said that Kiran had cheated the company and several of his customers by giving fake documents from the RTO. The SMS asked the customers to be cautious while dealing with Kiran and also said that the company had lodged an FIR at Vidyaranyapuram Police Station.

Panicked by the SMS, Ramesh rushed to RTO East where to his shock he found out that all the RTO and registration documents that had been handed over to him by Kiran were fake. He also realised that his Skoda car was not registered.

Ramesh then went to the car showroom where he was told that the RTO fee given to Kiran had not been credited to the showroom account and that Kiran had cheated the company and a case has been lodged. Ramesh then went to Vidyaranyapuram Police Station and told the Police that he wanted to book a case against the showroom for cheating him.

Ramesh told Star of Mysore that the Police refused to take his complaint and told him that as the showroom authorities had already lodged a complaint against Kiran, he could just give a statement.

According to the Police, Kiran was working in the showroom since two months and had cheated customers Malathi of Rs. 1.7 lakh, Nagaraju of Rs. 5.03 lakh, Swathi of Rs. 2.43 lakh and Karthik Murthy of Rs. 3 lakh and had not remitted the amount to the showroom account.

Rupal Patel of the car showroom has filed the complaint in this regard and the Police have booked a case under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code.