KOZHIKODE: When he won Rs 1-crore Karunya Lottery jackpot in 2016, Koya felt his luck would change. It did, just not for the better.
For the past 10 years, the 70-year-old autorickshaw driver’s life has been a combination of petitions, frequent travel from his native Kozhikode to government offices in Thiruvananthapuram and a juggle between rent, daily expenses and old debts.
A resident of Parannur in Kozhikode, Koya says his ticket (KE 454045) won the first prize of Rs 1 crore in the lottery drawn on July 9, 2016. There was one problem though.
“The ticket was damaged,” says Koya. On the advice of bank officials, he travelled to the lotteries department office at Vikas Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram on July 13, 2016, and handed over the ticket for verification.
“I was told to come back after three months. I have been waiting ever since,” he says.
Later, he was asked to approach the office of then Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac. No luck. He even approached then Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. On his complaint, the department ordered an inquiry. However, in March 2018, the department rejected his claim, saying there was insufficient evidence to establish that he had presented the winning ticket. A signed confirmation by lottery agent A V Devarajan, who sold Koya the ticket, was also not accepted.
Koya insists he submitted the ticket. “My only mistake was that I did not make a copy of it before handing it over. I trusted the system,” he says.
In 2021, a court directed the lotteries department to take a call on Koya’s entitlement to the prize money after hearing Koya and Devarajan. Neither the department nor the government has initiated any proceedings.
Koya believes his ticket may have been misplaced. “Even if they recover it now, they may not be in a position to admit what happened,” he says.
No other claimant in last 10 years
Curiously, no one else has come forward to claim the prize money. “If I am not the winner, who is,” asks Koya, a former lottery agent who suffered massive financial setback in the 1990s following an overnight ban on lotteries from other states.
Over time, he accumulated around Rs 76 lakh in various debts. To repay those, he had to sell two houses and 70 cents of land. Today, his debts stand at around Rs 32 lakh. His wife Sauda and children continue to live in a rented house in Kozhikode.
For Koya, the prize money could have changed everything. Instead, he says he has spent years surviving on odd jobs and the help of others.
In the 1970s, Koya performed dangerous circus stunts, rode bicycle inside the ‘well of death’ and dragged cars with his hair. However, it is his never-ending pursuit for justice that has seemingly left him exhausted.
Hope in new govt
The arrival of a new government in the state has brought a fresh, if fragile, hope for Koya. He hopes the new administration will look into his case afresh and give him an opportunity to prove his claim.