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he cant pay the duty without

Brother once bike has landed in India without proper duty one cannot pay after one year without the seizure of bike. Whether he has paid 10 lakh of duty bike will be still illegal un less and until he has a NOC or cleared certificate from DRI. Please check all duty paid paper are genuine and 6.50 is very high price for any duty issue P.M me thanks

some of the points which were collected from a previous thread about buying a used SBK...


Never buy a used superbike that only has a registration papers! This can be bought just by paying a bribe. This also applies to places like maharashtra where there are smart card systems. A smart card or an RC with the bikes name, owner and other description doesn't mean its a legal bike!

2. A genuine superbike will have two important documents among all other papers: A bill of landing and an invoice price sheet that assesses the price of the bike and its respective taxes. The bill of landing is the proof a vehicle entered legally into the country. It is a big piece of paper, about the size of a newspaper that is folded into two or four folds.

When someone wishes to sell you a bike, first ask if they have BILL OF LANDING! If they don't, then don't even bother looking at the bike

3. The invoice paper has a determined value of the bike. Make sure that in the invoice has atleast Rs. 2 lakhs (about $ 5 to 6K) paid in duty if the bike was brought in used. This prevents any form of trouble in the future, because it ensures that the duty paid was reasonable, depending up the used bike's life. Again, read above, AT LEAST 2 lakhs or above. So the invoice price can be higher as well.

4. Now, someone says that the bike does not have bill or landing, or invoice sheet, but they may say that they have DRI clearance. Now what does this mean? This means that DRI had confescated the bike, but the owner was compelled to get it back, by paying the appropriate taxes and fines. This makes sense because there's no point in DRI keep the bike for themselves and letting it rot. The DRI therefore, issues a clearance certificate where it clearly expresses the taxes paid, including the fine. When you see the clearance certifcate, please check with DRI is all the info is true. The DRI has offices across all metro and this can be verified.

VERY IMPORANT



5. And lastly, here's soemthing to keep in mind. Let's say you are buying a used SBK, such as a 2007 suzuki gsx R 600. This recently got sold in AP for 6.5 L recently. The ex-shoroom price of this bike is about $ 8.5K new (about 4.5 L). With 105% duty, that brinks the bike upto 9 to 9.5L on road in india after registrations, taxes etc. So its three years old, so considering basic depreciation of 15%, 12% and 10% for the past three years, the best buying prices of the bike would be (approximate estimate locally) 8.1 L in 2008, 7.15 L in 2009 and 6.45 L in 2010. This makes sense because the proper clean paper gsxr 600 sold for 6.5 lakhs recently! So any value below this, you have to become aware of the shadiness that's prevalent with the bike. You have many guyz quoting 5 to 6 L for these 600cc bikes and you can bargain for a low 5 L..but you won't end up with a clean bike.


as you are saying that it has just 1600km on ODO i wouldnt mind paying 6.5l for the bike will do a little bit of bargaining.... but 4 years and just 1600 km that is a little hard to digest...

Kinshuk, a question unrelated from the thread. I think you mean bill of lading. I have an officially purchased docu intruder and no bill of lading or tax document was provided to me. The custom duty was paid by suzuki india limited for the entire container and that document was provided at the time of registering to RTO. Do u think that I should ask for these docs?

I don't know about your experiences with gray bikes but all said and done for a gray R1 6.5L is a too much, clean or not. With a bit of hard work and a bit of luck you can get a pre-owned Showroom-Legal 08 R1 after some negotiations for around the same price 6.5-7L. Ditch this bike and look for a legal one. It's your call at the end of the Day. I'd value this around 4.5L if it was in excellent shape with some aftermarket bits on it, adding value to it. Besides 1600kms on the ODO in all probability is fake! It's a piece of cake to disconnect the speedo on the R1 and run it and a lot of SBK owners with gray bikes do it. Unless this bike has NOC from DRI, even i wouldn't touch this with a 20 feet pole.

Besides you'll get spares and service from the authorized SVC for the legal 08 bikes anyway. Your from MH. Go to mumbai/pune over a weekend with 7L and you'll find plenty of legal options there. Why simply bother with this bike?

It wont be necessary AFAIK besides I've couple of friends who own Legal busas and never had any issues so far. Your bike is legally sold. DRI is aware of this and they aren't looking for bikes sold through the showroom, although there was an instance where the DRI was looking for legal SBKs which hadn't been given the BoL but i think it was all sorted out long ago and there have been no issues ever since. But if you feel unsure, approach Suzuki in this matter and ask them to give you the necessary documents but I'm not sure they will give but you can try, for your peace of mind.

And he will also get the privilege to get the bike insured(Peace of mind from theft or accident).

in your case it wouldnt be necessary... these papers are necessary for people who have imported their bikes....

Please be careful...

Dear Mathayus,

Good work on bringing up this query with xbhp. Please be aware of shady superbike transactions. For the last couple of months, I have started and actively updating a thread on the following title...."stolen cbr600rr in hyderabad! please help!" I suggest that you read this thread, over 20 pages of detail, that outlines the grey market superbike business.

In short, There are a lot of shady things from what you have described.

The dealer told you that is it MH43 number, if it is really a clean bike, then why didn't the dealer disclose the full number?

Just wait and see how the scanned papers look like. As another member already noted, even the custom papers are fabricated these days. You have to understand that the DRI has been cracking down a lot of grey superbikes in the last couple of years? why? not only is the government cheated of its revenues, but with the advent of legal superbikes into india, the DRI has strictly revamped their strategy to nail down these bikes as much as possible. This is the primary reasons why many bikes are coming down to the south from MH.

Understand that the most important document that makes an "imported" bike clean is the bill of landing. This is not just one piece of paper. It is a set of papers (large paper, about the size of a news paper sheet that is folded into two or three folds) and receipts for which you will need a file to organize all of them.

It discloses the name of the person who imports it, country of origin, name of the shipping agent, start address and destination address, description of the product shipped, if a car or bike, the color, volume size, and weight (in pounds or kilograms or both), origin date, destination date, etc etc. Another important slip in this bill of landing is the invoice sheet. This is where the custom authorities determine and disclose the tax amount you will pay for the bike. Other papers include chalaans and other slips at the dock number where the bike got unloaded, the sign and verification of the port staff at that dock, etc etc. If a local agent is on this, he will collect all these for you.

The name on the bill of landing SHOULD match the name on the registration certificate. The registration authorities will see the bill of landing and the invoice slip, and only then are they authorized to issue a registration certificate for you, but just taking the registration fees, depending upon the cc of the bike.

This brigs about another important point. Just because a bike or car has to be imported through the bombay port, doesn't mean that it has to be registered in MH only! Not many people know this. Once you have clear bill of landing and invoice slip, you can take it to your own state (tamil nadu, andhra pradesh, karnataka etc) to register the bike. But most of the bikes are MH registered because, the RTO (especially in MH 02 and MH06 division) have taken bribe and issued registration certificates.

Most of the shady dealers say it has clear papers because they only imply the registration certificate, be it paper or a smart card.

My advice buddy, stay off these bikes! Its a big headache, and you will end up losing money only. Also, this dealer seems to be clearly making up stories, I mean, someone brings in a bike wanting to avoid tax and then realizes that he will pay the tax later? that too with penalty? sounds to hard to be true. Well, lets now look into another scenario...what if that person did pay the tax later, being the good citizen that he was. Ask the dealer for the "DRI clearance certificate." This certificate will be accompanied by an invoice which has all the tax and penalty amount paid. And check to see if the name on this clearance certificate matches the one on the registration certificate.

Let me tell you mathayus, these guys are even capable of taking a genuine certificate and forging it into a different name. If the bike is based in mumbai, tell dealer that you don't even want to look at the bike, tell him that you will come to mumbai and take a look at the original papers yourself. You can get a sense of how he reacts. For all you know, he may never even bother to talk to you again if you ask or tell all of the above. He will only try to find another bakra whom he can easily bait and run away with some quick cash.


All this trouble is NOT worth it. And if you do get a sense of the clearance certificate being genuine, then you can verify that with the DRI. There are DRI offices located across many states. CAll them and ask them for the reference, and you will get a VIN (vehicle identification number) from the DRI office....and see if that VIN matches this R1.

I know its your dream buddy, and it hurts to read all these things, knowing that you are still postponed from getting your dream. We all feel the same buddy. Remember that knowledge is power, and through this you will save yourself a lot of trouble, agony and most importantly cash! Good luck buddy!

The problem is that the bill of lading (not landing) will not suffice either.
I have seen a fake/forged bill of lading with my own eyes.
When everything else can be forged why not the bill of lading ?

If you are buying a bike from the streets ( i.e. not from a showroom) just do yourself a favour and think of it as an illegal one for in all certainty it is going to be an illegal one. Either dont buy from the streets or dont look hard to find a legal one.

Now if you are absolutely certain and know that the bike is legal because the owner has an uncle who works for DRI and he had said so.......you still shouldnt buy it. Because a hypothetical "clean" bike still cannot be sold to anyone as it remains to be the property of Government of India. So if the guy you are about to buy it from has one of such 'legal' bikes he still cannot sell it to you as he only has a provisional ownership of his bike and is under obligation to reproduce it at their office at any time the DRI wants...It is also clearly stated in his documents that he CANNOT SELL THE BIKE.


I am sorry but thats the truth. I am not saying dont buy a bike from the streets. But if you buy one dont really bother about its legality.
The bottomline is: even if the bike is clean the only way its legal to ride it on roads is if the owner of the bike himself is riding it. Its illegal for anyone else to ride it.

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. You can get legally sold R1s for a little more than 7L with a proper service history and documentation. There is no need to take these risks when so much money is at stake.

Why do people NOT realize that if they have 6-7L in the hand they can drive a BRAND NEW SBK of their dreams out of the showroom for a reasonable EMI

Another thing to keep in mind is that most grey market bikes are ASSEMBLED by some jugaad mechanic using the wrong tools, local fasteners and bolts, wrong torque settings etc. I would be PETRIFIED to ride such a "Lego" bike at any speed because anything can happen! In the past this was a risk you had to take if you wanted to realize your dream but not anymore!

This is so insane, even after paying all the duties along with penalty why can't a person sell his bike? And why is the ownership not passed on to the person paying the duties?

Or is there something more to it that I am unable to see?

There is nothing that you are missing or unable to see. You can only get provisional ownnership of the bike that you have paid the duties for. Thats the rule...fair or unfair is a different matter alltogether.

Will peeps please stop calling "bill of lading" as "bill of LANDING "
I know that the word "landing" makes more sense to many as compared to the word "lading". But again...there is nothing which gets called as bill of landing. Its "Lading" as pointed out earlier by gsferrari.
Not only will it confuse others who would bust the dealers balls askign for bill of landing when a document of such a name never existed its also annoying to read a term being spelled incorrectly over and over and over again.

This is an eye opener ! Everywhere ppl call it "landing" . damn !