High court stays ban on single-digit lotteries

The Guwahati high court has stayed the Presidential ordinance banning single-digit lotteries which have wrought havoc throughout the country.

The high court stay follows a petition filed by the Nagaland government and a lottery agency challenging the ordinance.

A single bench of the high court, comprising Justice Meera Sharma, ordered on Monday that if the implementation of the ordinance was not stayed, the petitioner state would suffer a financial loss as the tickets for the lottery for October 1997 had already been sold.

The Nagaland government had challenged the legality and validity of the Lotteries Regulation Ordinance, 1997, and the jurisdiction of the President of India in issuing the ordinance under Article 123 of the Constitution. The petition said the provisions of Article 123 could not be invoked in cases where the impunged ordinance affects the State's rights to do business.

The petitioners further alleged malafide intent on the ground that a committee has been constituted under Som Pal, MP, to study the issue with a view to framing a legislation.

The Nagaland government further alleged that there had been undue haste in promulgating the ordinance.

However, Union government counsel P N Choudhury opposed the interim prayer saying the ordinance had been promulgated in response to long-pending public demand to check rampant unrestricted lottery business and that the move was in the greater public interest.

UNI