Ramanagara, 30 June

 Lokayukta on Friday busted a racket involving regional transport office (RTO) officials in Ramanagara, who caused a loss of hundreds of crore of rupees to the state exchequer. The RTO officials are accused of taking bribes and re-registering at least 2,000 used vehicles and seized tractors under the same registration numbers. A complaint was filed on Thursday regarding the racket being run by the Ramanagara RTO. Following this, the Lokayukta officials conducted a raid on Friday and arrested three individuals, including RTO Shivakumar, second-class assistant Rachita Raj, and mediator Satish.

 Satish allegedly arranged for used and seized vehicles and re-registered them with buyers. Shivakumar and Raj would then produce fake documents, showing they were purchased by farmers for agricultural purposes. Tractors used for agricultural purposes are exempt from tax. However, farmers must pay Rs 2,750 per vehicle during registration. Commercial tractors, on the other hand, must pay Rs 3,000 tax every three months. Lokayukta officials raided various locations, including the Bengaluru residence of Shivakumar, recovering crore of rupees. They also seized documents of more than 1,500 illegally registered tractors. Salar News