Vigilance surprise raids unearth entrenched corruption in Kerala’s Motor Vehicle department

The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (VACB) on Sunday (July 20, 2025) claimed it had uncovered “widespread and entrenched corruption” in the Kerala State Motor Vehicle department (MVD). 

On Saturday, VACB officials, acting on intelligence collected covertly over several weeks, swooped down on 81 MVD offices across the State, as part of a centrally coordinated simultaneous operation code-named “Clean Wheels”.

The surprise inspections targeted 17 RTOs and 64 Sub-Regional Transport Offices (SRTOs). Investigators said clerical and enforcement officials at RTOs benefited from the racket. 

‘Perfunctory’ examinations

Top officials told The Hindu that a network of “dishonest” MVD officials attached to the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) had devised a variety of illegal methods to allow vehicles seeking fitness certificates and driving license aspirants to pass inspections by conducting “perfunctory examinations”, potentially jeopardising the safety of lakhs of road users, including motorists and pedestrians.

 Officials said that re-registration of ageing vehicles, issuance of fitness certificates, permits for lorries and buses, and conducting driving tests for permanent driving licenses were among the central avenues of corruption in the MVD.

Official-agent nexus

They stated that the surprise raids had revealed that officials worked in concert with agents who collected the bribe money from service seekers, which they then clandestinely passed on to the vehicle inspectors at weekends after taking a substantial cut. 

The agency stated that a significant portion of the bribes collected from the public was passed on to the officials by agents as UPI transactions. VACB investigators said a preliminary verification of the UPI transactions of several MVD officials revealed that they had illicitly received a total amount of ₹7,84,598. “The amount is merely the iceberg’s tip,” a senior official said.

“A common practice at RTOs is to reject online applications for registering new vehicles, transferring ownership of existing ones and issuing permits for commercial vehicles, citing minor errors, forcing the applicants to approach agents for the public service,” he added.  

The VACB found that applications “attested” by agents were cleared quickly, without following any order of precedence. “Scores of independent applications, including for license renewal, learner’s license, international license and no objection certificate for inter-State vehicle transfers, gathered dust in RTO offices pending clearance because no middleman sponsored them,” an investigator said. 

RTOs caught off guard

The VACB had timed the RTO raid for the weekend closing time on Saturday afternoon. The surprise inspections appeared to have caught RTO officials and their agents off guard. In Nilambur SRTO, agents found ₹49,300 “hastily thrown outside the window” by officials. 

The VACB confiscated ₹1,40,760 from agents across the State. Many were caught with huge sums of unaccounted money in RTO offices”, an official said. The agency has detained at least 11 suspected intermediaries for questioning. Director General of Police, VACB, Manoj Abraham, supervised the anti-corruption drive.