Irony of life: Indians stash ill-gotten money abroad, outsiders fleece Kerala through bogus lotteries

It is an irony of life in India; a lot of money is stashed abroad in various banks by individuals who could amass such filthy wealth using their position. America has got back part of its money thus lodged abroad, and it got penalty amount also. If India gets back all the money parked abroad by people who had got it by devious means, the country would at once become a world power, perhaps it can overtake China in money power. That is one aspect of it.

In Kerala High Court, it was argued on behalf of Santiago Martin of Megha Distributors by Manu Abhishek Singhvi of Congress Party, and later by others, that Kerala Government’s lottery ordinance disabling outside lotteries of devious distinction from operating from the State was interfering with the Constittuional powers of the Centre. Kerala Chief Minister V.S.Achuthanandan had sent a letter to the Prime Minister earlier that Rs 80,000 crore was amassed from the state by such lottery operators during the last four or five years.

And the court has accepted the arguments of the learned lawyers, for it can only discharge justice on the basis of the arguments adduced in its portals.

And now the ilk of Santiago Martin are singing the Constitutional usurpation of the country for fleecing the poor people of the State by running lotteries whose draw, details of payment of bumper and first prize winners, the venue of draw etc are kept in the dark!!!

There is no difference of opinion about this point with regard to Kerala’s Finance Minister Dr Thomas Isaac of the CPM and Congress Party’s spokesman Manu Abhishek Singhvi. They sail on the same boat with similar arguments.
The previous Oommen Chandy Government had banned lotteries of all sorts, in view of the monstrosity of the fraud going on here. But poor lottery vendors had taken up cudgels against the move and that was withdrawn.

Now it is up to the Centre and the State together to find a way out so that the poor people of the State would not be depleted of their hard-earned money.