TIRUPPUR: Luck smiled on them twice over as four Tiruppur residents, who hit a Rs 25-crore jackpot by winning the first prize in Kerala’s Onam special bumper lottery, received the money after an agonizing wait for nearly a month.
The prize money of Rs 17 crore, after deduction and taxes on Rs 25 crore, was put on hold as complaints were filed with the Kerala Lottery Department saying that the winners had purchased the ticket in the black market in Tamil Nadu, where lottery sale is banned, and their win is illegal.
According to sources, Pandiyaraj, Natrajan, Kuppusamy, and Ramasamy, all residents of Tiruppur, had gone to Walayar in Kerala to meet a relative on September 12. They had bought four tickets at a shop on their way back home.
Pandiyaraj, one of the winners, told TNIE, “I have been running a teashop in Tiruppur for many years. I went to meet a relative admitted to a private hospital in Walayar along with my friends Natrajan, Kuppusamy and Ramasamy. While stepping out of the hospital, we found a lottery ticket shop and decided to buy some tickets.
Kerala accepted docus submitted by TN winners
The cost of one ticket was Rs 500. Since the prize was huge, we pooled in money and bought five tickets. On September 20, we got the happy news about one of our tickets (TE230662) being selected for the bumper prize of Rs 25 crore. We informed our relatives and travelled to Thiruvananthapuram the next day. We submitted our claim along with an Aadhaar card and other details to the Kerala Lottery Department.
Officials said they would scrutinise our claim. But we did not hear from them for more than 20 days. We came to know that some people had lodged a complaint saying we had purchased the ticket through the black market in TN. We feared we would be declared ineligible. Finally, the Kerala government accepted our claims, and after deducting agent commission and other local taxes, around Rs 17 crore was deposited in one of our accounts. We will share it among ourselves.”
Explaining the reason for the delay in giving the prize money, an official from the directorate of state lotteries (Kerala) said, “Sale and purchase of lottery tickets is allowed in Kerala, but not in many states.”
The winners from TN submitted the ticket along with original documents. We asked them the reason for their visit to Kerala and they gave the reason. The documents submitted by them were processed by the monitoring committee of the directorate of state lotteries. After the scrutiny, the reasons were found to be valid and the prize money was deposited.”
On the issue of possession of lottery tickets in Tamil Nadu, a Tiruppur police official said, “TN is very close to Kerala, and a lot of people visit the state regularly and may return with a lottery ticket. In this case, there was information that they had bought tickets sold illegally in TN. But no complaint was lodged by Kerala authorities.”
Tiruppur District Lawyers Association president M Sundareswaran said, “TN has banned the sale of lottery tickets. Anybody possessing a lottery ticket can be arrested in TN. But arrests can be made only if a person is in possession of ‘live’ tickets for which results have not been declared. Since Kerala is very close to us, many people cross the border to buy lottery tickets. Also, it is not practical to check baggage of every person coming from Kerala for possession of lottery ticket.”
