Cuttack, May 10: Seized vehicles stockpiled at police stations have become a headache for the cops because they have gone out of space to accommodate them.

Dumped vehicles - including two-wheelers and four-wheelers - are a common sight at all the 13 police stations of the city.

About 35 to 40 such vehicles are gathering dust in each of these police stations. Some of the vehicles have been lying in the open for more than a decade now.

Madhupatna police station has run out of space. It has 83 seized vehicles on its premises while Lalbag police station has 81 of those.

The situation is almost the same in every police station in the city but the ones at Badambadi, Jagatpur, Sadar, Lalbag, Cantonment and Mangalabag are particularly overcrowded.

"Disposal of these vehicles is a headache," admitted an officer at the Badambadi police station.

Around 532 seized vehicles - mostly motorcycles - are gathering dust at the police stations. Of them, 66 are unclaimed vehicles, while the rest had been seized in connection with various criminal cases.

The Supreme Court had passed an order in 2010 directing all state governments, Union territories and director-generals of police to dispose of all case property materials, including vehicles, under relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC). However, the state has not done anything to dispose of the seized vehicles.

A police officer said that most of the vehicles had been seized in connection with various criminal cases but many of the vehicles had turned into junk and held no significance in the cases at all.

Deputy commissioner of police Sanjeev Arora said that these case-related properties were actually meant to be kept in the court godowns. But as the courts plead space constraint, the vehicles continue to be stored at the police stations.

"We cannot dispose of the vehicles on our own without the permission of the court," Arora told The Telegraph. However, the officer said that they were taking steps to ensure that these vehicles went back to their rightful owners.

Some of the impounded vehicles are also suspected to be bearing fake and tampered registration, engine and chassis numbers. Such vehicles would first be registered with the motor vehicles department and then auctioned to the highest bidder.

"The police commissioner has the power to auction off the unclaimed vehicles. But, no tangible steps have been taken to expedite the process in recent years," said Orissa High Court lawyer Pravat Ranjan Das.

To this, Arora said that a process had started to identify and auction off the unclaimed vehicles.