The Sikkim High Court has recently dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) highlighting that the State of Sikkim suffered loss of revenue in the backdrop of an invoice/bill dated 26th June, 2017 while conducting lottery during the last agreement period entered into by the state and the private respondent.
On April 19, when the matter was taken up for consideration, the Additional Advocate General drew the attention of the Division Bench of Chief Justice Biswanath Somadder and Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai to a report in the form of an affidavit affirmed on April 8, 2022, by the Director, Directorate of Sikkim State Lotteries, Finance Department, Government of Sikkim, who has been duly authorised by the state government to file the same.
On bare perusal of the said report in the form of an affidavit , the Court noted that there is no loss to the State exchequer – or, in other words – the State of Sikkim did not suffer any loss of revenue while lottery was being conducted, which was the Court’s only concern while entertaining this PIL.
At this juncture, the advocate representing the petitioner drew the attention of the High Court to the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and submitted that the enclosed audit findings therein will reveal that during 2010-2016, the State of Sikkim, while organising around 44,834 draws of various lottery schemes, had committed many lapses in the lottery operations of the State relating to monitoring, maintenance of records, deposit of revenues, failure to authenticate and ascertain prize payments by Marketing Agents (MAs), the draw process, failure to obtain details of prize winning tickets and unsold tickets from the MAs and absence of checks and controls on operation of lottery schemes.
The counsel also referred to various portions of the report of the CAG for the year ending March 2016 in respect of performance audit on Sikkim state lotteries.
While the Court carefully perused the report containing the results of performance audit on Sikkim state lotteries, prepared by the CAG, the Court found that the period reflected therein, i.e., between 2010 till March 2016, is not the period under judicial scrutiny so far as this PIL is concerned. The period with which the High Court is concerned centres around the last agreement period between July 2016 and July 2021, which was entered into by the State of Sikkim and the private respondent, for conducting the lottery.
During this period, the State of Sikkim did not suffer any loss of revenue while the lottery was being conducted by the private respondent. As such, the Court have no hesitation in observing that Jojo Jose – who has instituted this Public Interest Litigation before the Court and who claims to be a resident of Siddhartha Enclave, Ashram, Ring Road, New Delhi – is none but a meddlesome busybody seeking this Court’s intervention by filing the instant PIL for reasons which are clearly not bona fide, observed the Court while dismissing the PIL.