The Kerala government is planning to move the Centre with a plea to ban the sale of Mizoram lottery in the State, even as the police initiated a crackdown on stocks of the lottery at various places on Saturday.
Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac told a press conference here that the Mizoram government had flouted regulations in its bid to promote the sale of lottery tickets in Kerala. The government, he said, had failed to furnish information as mandated by Central law.
“A letter received by the Chief Secretary on Saturday merely mentioned the list of distributors. The marketing arrangements and details of the printing, distribution and sale of lotteries were not revealed. The Mizoram government will be informed that this is unacceptable. Stocking tickets before completing these formalities constitutes a violation of the law and is hence illegal,” he said.
Dr.Isaac said the police had initiated a crackdown on stocks of Mizoram lottery in Kerala. “One godown at Palakkad has been sealed and steps are on to seize tickets stocked elsewhere,” he said.
The Minister said the performance audit on the Mizoram State lotteries conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General had revealed several irregularities. “The audit detected flaws in the agreement between the State and the four distributors, the revenue sharing mechanism, the design of the tickets and the draw. The letter received by the Chief Secretary states that the sale of Mizoram lottery in Kerala would be based on the same agreement that cannot stand up to scrutiny,” he said.
Dr. Isaac said the Kerala government would move the Union Home Ministry seeking a ban on the sale of Mizoram lottery in the State.
