Celeb Automobile Designer Dilip Chhabria Booked Once Again for Duping Chennai Businessman of ₹ 22 Crore

The fresh FIR was filed after a complaint was lodged against him by an automobile spare parts supplier.

New Delhi: Ace car-designer Dilip Chhabria, who was arrested in December last year for cheating, was booked once again by the economic offences wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police registered for allegedly duping a Chennai-based businessman of over Rs 22 crore. Earlier on December 29, 2020, Chhabria was arrested by the criminal intelligence unit (CIU) of Mumbai Police’s crime branch in connection with a car financing and dual registration racket.

The fresh FIR was filed after a complaint was lodged against him by an automobile spare parts supplier. The supplier approached the cops and accused the vehicle designer of cheating and also claimed that he supplied spare parts to Chhabria from 2016 to 2018. However, Chhabria did not pay Rs 18 crore for the spare parts, said an EOW officer.

“Chhabria had also allegedly taken a big sum of money as loan. With interest, the loan amount has now gone up to Rs 4.12 crore, which Chhabria owes to the complainant,” the officer added.  The police booked Chhabria and his partners in the company for criminal conspiracy and cheating.

Actor-comedian Kapil Sharma had also registered a complaint with Versova police alleging that Chhabria had taken Rs 5.7 crore from him for designing a vanity van but did not deliver it. Chhabria is presently in judicial custody in the car finance racket case.

Chhabria shot into limelight in the 1990s after he produced some eye-catching fancy masterpieces of private cars of various celebs and even vanity vans of Bollywood personalities besides some concept cars, luxury passenger buses, and even aircraft interiors to soon become a legend in the country’s niche automobile-designing industry.