Bengaluru: In a relief to the transport department in a controversy involving the seizure and cancellation of registration of a Mercedes-Benz car, a division bench of the Karnataka high court upheld the department’s action.The division bench of chief justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice KS Hemalekha set aside a March 24, 2026 order of a single bench that had allowed a petition filed by Mangaluru resident Neeraj Kumar Sharma.On June 15, 2025, RTO officials seized the vehicle while it was parked outside the residence of one Nitin Shetty in Mysuru, alleging that it fell under the category of Mercedes-Benz G63 as per the inspection report. The vehicle’s registration was subsequently cancelled on Jan 16, 2026.The transport department argued that the registration had been obtained on the basis of fabricated documents that described the vehicle as a Mercedes-Benz GLA 200 CDI instead of Mercedes AMG G63, resulting in its value being shown as Rs 32.1 lakh instead of approximately Rs 1.9 crore. Consequently, the lifetime tax payable on the vehicle was reduced from Rs 78.3 lakh to Rs 12.7 lakh.Sharma claimed that he had paid Rs 62.5 lakh on behalf of Nihal Ahmed, who had originally purchased the car through a hypothecated loan agreement with HDFC Bank. He maintained that he bought the vehicle after settling Ahmed’s dues. Ahmed had purchased the vehicle from a showroom on Dec 31, 2016.However, the division bench noted that Sharma failed to produce any material showing that the vehicle had been registered in his favour on the basis of any sale document executed either by Nihal Ahmed or HDFC Bank.“The respondent (Neeraj) has not contradicted that the registration of the vehicle in question was obtained on the basis of the documents as stated by the transport department. The sale certificate issued by Mercedes Benz Pvt Ltd and the tax invoice are prima facie fabricated documents. The said company has also confirmed that no such documents have been issued. More importantly, it is not the respondent’s case that he purchased the vehicle from Mercedes-Benz Pvt Ltd. His counsel argued that the respondent had purchased the vehicle from HDFC Bank. However, there is no document on record to indicate either that HDFC Bank had sold the vehicle to the respondent or that the vehicle in question was registered on the basis of the said document,” the division bench observed while setting aside the single bench order and upholding the action initiated by the transport department.
