"A Matter of Chance" continues....

APS Agencies’ books revealed that Rs 23 lakh had been paid to M/s Krishna Paper Mart for the supply of paper and Rs 30 lakh to Druck Grafen for the printing of lottery tickets. Since Krishna Paper Mart was a fictitious entity, the paper could not have been procured from them. Investigations also revealed how this money had been swindled by dubious bank dealings carried out by APS Agencies and Druck Grafen. Needless to say, no taxes had been paid to the exchequer for these dealings.

To top it all, APS Agencies denied its lottery winners access to prize money by some trick or the other.

The winning buyer had to claim his or her money within fortyfive days of the announcement of the prize and had to make the claim through the office of the Punjab State Lotteries. The office, after ascertaining the genuineness of the tickets, was supposed to send the claim to APS Agencies, which would make the money available to the lottery office that would then disburse the money to the winner. The lottery department of the Punjab government furnished a list of 246 draws of Matka Sone Ka and 102 draws of Matka Motiyon Ka. It was astonishing to find that only thirty-one claims for prize money out of 246 draws of MSK and fifteen claims out of 102 draws of MMK were made.

A total of only Rs 5 lakh stood disbursed out of the Rs 6.91 crore that was kept reserved for prizes. The balance amount of Rs 6.86 crore had been swindled. It was also clear that officials of the Punjab lottery department had not supervised the conduct of lotteries closely, and were, perhaps, part of the scam.

It was no surprise, therefore, that officials of the lottery departments of various states, including Punjab, were camping in Delhi during our investigation, trying their best to twist our arms. Since our superiors supported us and we stood our ground, we had little difficulty in withstanding the pressure tactics.


To be continued.....