Mohali, Aug. 2 -- A Ludhiana resident has been booked for allegedly forging a bank no-objection certificate (NOC), getting the hypothecation removed from a car's registration certificate (RC) and selling the vehicle as loan-free, cheating a Zirakpur-based used-car dealer of Rs.5.7 lakh. The accused has been identified as Deepak Chawla, a resident of Kripal Nagar, Ludhiana. The FIR was registered on Friday at Zirakpur police station following a complaint by Ajay Nain, a Panchkula resident who operates a used-car dealership associated with Cars24 in Zirakpur. According to the complaint, Chawla approached the dealership on August 4, 2025, to sell a Maruti Swift bearing registration number PB-10-JX-8964. He allegedly claimed that the vehicle was free from any loan and the complainant also found no hypothecation entry on the Vahan portal before purchasing the car for Rs.5.7 lakh. The alleged fraud surfaced when Nain later tried to sell the vehicle to another buyer. During verification, the prospective buyer contacted Kotak Mahindra Bank and found that the car still carried an active loan. Police said the subsequent inquiry revealed that the accused had allegedly submitted a forged NOC purportedly issued by Kotak Mahindra Prime to the Ludhiana regional transport office (RTO) to remove the hypothecation entry from the vehicle's registration certificate. During verification, Kotak Mahindra Bank informed the police through email that the NOC was fake and that the loan agreement number mentioned in the document did not exist. The bank further stated that the vehicle was linked to another loan account, which had an outstanding balance of Rs.6.5 lakh as of February 20, 2026. The inquiry conducted by the Zirakpur ACP, concluded that the accused had allegedly used forged documents to conceal the outstanding loan and induce the complainant to purchase the vehicle. Following the report, police registered a case under Sections 318(4), 336(2), 338, 336(3) and 340(2) of the BNS against the accused....