By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, April 9: In a big blow to the state government, the High Court of Meghalaya has quashed an FIR filed against two individuals involved in lottery business by the Director of the Meghalaya State Lottery. The Court found the allegations made in the FIR to be vague, improbable, and lacking any legal basis.
Justice B Bhattacharjee, who presided over the case, observed that the complaint failed to establish any prima facie case under the sections invoked, which included criminal breach of trust, cheating, mischief, defamation, and criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code.
The petitioners — Lottery King Santiago Martin of Coimbatore and Subbayan Nagarajan of Kolkata — had been accused of disrupting the business of the newly launched Meghalaya State Lottery. The FIR alleged that the petitioners conspired to spread false information and colluded with henchmen and gangsters to intimidate stockists and sub-stockists in order to maintain a monopoly for the Sikkim and Nagaland lotteries that they marketed.
However, the court noted that the date of the alleged offense (March 28, 2022) was prior to the appointment of the official distributors for the Meghalaya State Lottery (August and September 2022), rendering the timeline of events illogical. “In the absence of appointed distributors, there could not have been any stockists or sub-stockists, making the allegation inherently improbable,” the judgment stated.
The FIR had also claimed that the actions of the accused resulted in a loss of Rs 1,500 crores to the state. However, the court dismissed this as exaggerated and baseless, pointing out that the total possible turnover from the lottery sales during the said period was just over Rs 57 crore.
“The calculation is not disputed by the State-respondent. Thus, the allegation of approximate loss of Rs 1,500 crore made in the impugned FIR, is nothing but outcome of a figment of imagination having no bearing with the real or objective existence and, therefore, inherently improbable,” the court said.
Citing delays in the investigation — where the FIR was registered in September 2023 but transferred to the State CID only in 2024 — the court remarked that the authorities had shown no real intention to pursue the matter seriously. It concluded that continuing the investigation would amount to an “abuse of the process of law” and would cause undue injustice to the petitioners.
The petitioners initially did not have any information of the lodging of the FIR against them. Recently, after coming to know about the FIR, the petitioners approached the High Court with a prayer for quashing the same.
Senior Counsel for the petitioners, KN Choudhury, submitted that the allegations made in the FIR are absurd and highly improbable given that the alleged date of occurrence which was stated to be on March 28, 2022, whereas the distributors named in the FIR came to be appointed only on September 16, 2022, and August 31, 2022. He submitted that the allegations made in the FIR, even if are accepted at their face value and entirety, do not make out any offence against the petitioners. “The allegations are inherently improbable basing on which no prudent person can ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the petitioners,” he said, submitting that the FIR has been lodged at the instance of the business rivals of the petitioners as a stiff competition exists in the field of lottery business. He added that the allegation of approximate loss of Rs 1,500 crore made in the FIR is out-and-out false as the total turnover in case of 100% sale of Meghalaya Lotteries with effect from the date of first draw till the date of filing of the FIR could have been Rs 57.19 crore.
Drawing attention of the court to the various sections of law under which the FIR has been registered, the learned senior counsel stated that none of the ingredients of offence of criminal breach of trust, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, mischief, defamation and criminal intimation is made out against the petitioners.
He lastly said that the FIR is aimed at initiation of “frivolous and vexatious” proceeding against the petitioners in order to cause harm and loss to their reputation and business, while requesting the court to quash the impugned FIR.
Eventually, the court ruled that there was no evidence of coercion, destruction of property, or any dishonest inducement that could justify the charges.
While quashing the FIR, it pointed out that the delay in investigation leads to prejudice and injustice to the accused and can also be a valid reason for the court to consider quashing of the FIR.
“In the present case, in view of the facts and circumstances of the case as observed, the continuation of the investigation would be an abuse of the process of law causing injustice to the petitioners,” the single-bench court said.