The TC adopted a very dim view of the use of an unauthorised operating centre, which gave father and son operations a three-hour driving advantage. Two father and son hauliers have had their licences revoked for use of an unauthorised operating centre and one has been disqualified for six months. A third man, the transport manager, has lost his repute.
Birmingham-based Avtar Grewal, trading as Zaildar Transport, with an O-licence for four vehicles, and his father, Jagtar Grewal, trading as Zaildar Haulage, with an O-licence for two vehicles, had been called before the West Midlands Deputy Traffic Commissioner, Miles Dorrington.
While both had their O-licences revoked, Avtar Grewal has also been disqualified for six months and Balvinder Singh, the transport manager for both O-licences, was found to have lost his repute. Traffic examiner Helen Key said that it was a three-hour round trip of 120 miles from the specified operating centre for both Zaildar Transport and Zaildar 
Haulage to the quarry in Mancetter, Warwickshire, where they were undertaking their work.
The tachograph records showed that not one of the vehicles operated were parked daily at the specified operating centre, and that they were normally parked in Leicestershire. In December 2008 she warned Avtar Grewal that the correct operating centre was not being used and that he would need an O-licence in a different traffic area if he wanted to carry on parking vehicles where they were being parked.
Avtar Grewal said that Balvinder Singh, the nominated transport manager of Zaildar Transport, had left the UK in April and was not due to return until the end of July. He accepted that since the vehicles were not normally returning to their specified operating centre, they gained the benefit of about three hours extra use each day. He agreed that amounted to a commercial advantage but claimed he did not understand what the traffic examiner had said to him in December 2008. He produced a letter purporting 
to be from Balvinder Singh, setting out his movements, but later admitted that the letter was not from Singh. He apologised for introducing a false document.
Jagtar Grewal said that he had been forced to spend a lot of time in India. He had entrusted his business to his son, Avtar Grewal, while he was away, and that he never had any reason to think his son was not looking after the business correctly. The nominated transport manager, William Shelley, was only with Zaildar Haulage when the business was first formed. He had not been on the payroll for a long time, and he had not been expected to assist since Balvinder Singh had assumed responsibility as transport manager for both O-licences after the two businesses merged for tax reasons.
The DTC said this was a bad case because Avtar Grewal had deliberately and knowingly introduced a false document into a public inquiry and he had also knowingly, for commercial gain, regularly used an unauthorised operating centre in a different traffic area. He determined that neither Zaildar Transport nor Zaildar Haulage met the professionally competent requirement, and that Balvidar Singh had forfeited his repute as a transport manager. The DTC disqualified Avtar Grewal from holding or obtaining an O-licence for a period of six months.
Unauthorised use a criminal offence.
The DTC reminded operators that using an unauthorised operating centre was a criminal offence as laid down by Parliament.