Denying knowledge: Excise dept clueless about use of over 16,200 govt vehicles

Petitioners allege that unregistered official vehicles are often used in criminal activities

KARACHI: The use of official vehicles in criminal activities has been an issue plaguing the metropolis, but the excise and taxation department says that it has no knowledge or authority to ask who was behind the wheel of over 16,200 vehicles belonging to various provincial departments.

This was revealed by the motor registration wing of the department before a Sindh High Court bench that was hearing a petition against unregistered official vehicles being used in criminal activities.

Standing counsel Iqbal Ahmed Soomro submitted the report on behalf of the excise and taxation department. According to the report, as many as 16,204 vehicles plying on the roads belong to different provincial departments, with 3,997 vehicles belonging to the Sindh police alone.

"This office does not have the information or authority to know to whom these vehicles have been given for official use," the report revealed.

Soomro said that a detailed record of the vehicles belonging to the various departments had already been submitted to the court. However, he undertook to furnish copies of the statement and record to the petitioners' lawyer to enable him to go through it within the next 15 days.

Headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, the bench took the report on record and adjourned the hearing to a date that would later be notified, when the prosecution could file a rejoinder if desired.

Case history

A group of citizens, who themselves had been victims of criminal activities in the city and had later founded a trust to fight crimes, had taken the chief secretary, the excise and home departments secretaries and the provincial police chief to court for failing to check the use of official vehicles in such activities.

According to them, a large number of unregistered private and official vehicles with illegal number plates, including 'applied for registration', fancy, and fake green and foreign ones, were roaming the city amid the failure of the traffic police to hunt them down.

The group, called Citizens Trust Against Crime, referred to a survey which revealed that 4,000 to 6,000 vehicles under the use of the government officials were not registered with the department.

"Thirty-five per cent of the vehicles carry fake number plates and many private vehicles have number plates with a green background in order to make them appear 'official'," the group said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2015.