Sanjay Dutt has deposited with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) the duty on the Porsche car he allegedly imported by manipulating the Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme.
According to sources, the actor paid the duty—equivalent to the price of the car, as per import regulations—on Thursday. The car cost about Rs 43 lakh.
Sources added that the actor will now have to furnish a bank guarantee of 25 per cent of the duty and sign a bond equivalent to the total price of the car.
The penalty sum, if any, will be decided after adjudication.
The high-end car was seized by the DRI’s Bombay Zonal Unit in Pune on October 25, along with two other Porsches and one Mercedes Benz. Dutt’s car was detained from a farmhouse. The total duty evasion for all four cars amounts to about Rs 2.50 crore.
Just a few days before the seizure, the DRI’s Delhi headquarters had seized actor Suniel Shetty’s Hummer in Delhi on October 23.
The Hummer had been imported by one Sanjay Bhandari, who had claimed to have garnered the foreign exchange from a hotel he owned in Rajasthan.
The hotel later proved to be non-existent. But the claim had been in line with the EPCG scheme, which allows the import of motor cars, sports utility vehicles and all-purpose vehicles by hotels, travel agents, tour operators or transport tour operators whose total foreign exchange earnings in the current and preceding three years is Rs 1.5 crore.
Such buyers may pay a Customs duty of only 5 per cent, as against the normal 105 per cent.
In Dutt’s case, sources said he was issued a letter for the payment of duty and furnishing of bond and bank guarantee soon after the impounding of the car.
The documents, however, could only be accepted after the actor returned from shooting abroad.
Now, officials have reportedly asked the actor—as well as the owners of the other impounded cars—to collect the vehicles as soon as possible ‘‘so they do not get spoiled because of the lack of godown facilities’’.
The Dutt garage
Sanjay Dutt started driving when he was 13—and he still drives all his cars. In addition to the Porsche, Dutt owns a Lexus LX 470 Sports Utility Vehicle, a Mercedes M-Class and a 5-litre turbo-diesel Toyota LandCruiser. The first car he owned was a BMW 3 Series. His dream car is a Ferrari 550 Maranello.
