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Six lottery firms cheat Maharashtra government out of Rs 1000 cr

Updated on: 25 October,2016 07:00 AM IST  | 
Vijay Kumar Yadav |

Economic offences wing books six top firms for causing losses worth almost 10 billion rupees to Maharashtra by illegally selling lottery tickets of other states

Six lottery firms cheat Maharashtra government out of Rs 1000 cr

Six lottery firms cheat Maharashtra govt out of Rs 1000 crores

Rs1,000-CR JACKPOT
Imaging by Ravi


Six lottery firms operating in the city have allegedly cheated the state government of a whopping Rs 1,000 crore, almost. The firms have been illegally running online lotteries of other states like Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram and defaulting on tax payments, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police has said. The six lottery operating firms, M/s Swagat Agency, M/s Samarpan Trading Pvt Ltd., M/s Kenlot Gaming Solutions Pvt Ltd., M/s Jupiter Gaming Pvt Ltd., M/s S L Marketing and M/s Shweta Enterprises have now been slapped with a case.


The case (copy of the FIR with mid-day) against them is of cheating and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and under relevant sections of the Maharashtra Tax on Lottery Act. It was filed a few weeks ago by the EOW with the Sewri police, who have taken over the investigation.


The officer who blew the lid on this is Sneha Narvekar (50) accountant officer (administration) and assistant commissioner (lottery tax). Narvekar is responsible for tax collection and tackling pending tax issues on lottery draws in Maharashtra and other states.

Narvekar, while going through pending tax matters, learnt that the six firms had drawn lotteries in the state but had not paid any tax. Narvekar then initiated the standard recovery process, which did not yield any result. She then prepared a report mentioning the defaulters and amounts due – M/s Swagat Agency - Rs 76.22crore, M/s Samarpan Trading Pvt Ltd. - Rs 134.43crore, M/s Kenlot Gaming Solutions Pvt Ltd. - Rs 37.98crore, M/s Jupiter Gaming Pvt Ltd. - Rs 323.05crore, M/s S L Marketing - Rs 113.14crore and M/s Shweta Enterprises - Rs 228.30crore, a total of Rs 913.12 crore.

The owners/promoters/proprietors of these companies are –
Pradeep Kumar Lunkad (M/s Swagat Agency), Pradeep Kumar Lunkad and Vipul Chhabildas Kamdar (M/s Samarpan Trading Pvt Ltd), Amit Laxminarayan Goyal and Amit Subhashchandra Goenka (M/s Kenlot Gaming Sulutions Pvt Ltd), Pushkar Dutt Bansal and Suryakant Sharma (M/s Jupiter Gaming Pvt Ltd.), Hitesh Shankarlal Pujani (M/s S L Marketing) and Sachin Marotrao Satone (M/s Shweta Enterprises) have been booked and shown as wanted in the case.

Narvekar has stated that the firms and their owners unlawfully sold online tickets of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram and operated lottery draws in Maharashtra without informing the deputy director (Finance and Accounts) and deputy commissioner (Lottery Tax). They have also not paid advance tax and in an organised manner in order to gain wrongful profit caused a revenue loss of Rs 913.13 crores to Maharashtra.

Senior inspector Vijaysingh Ghatge of EOW unit 3 has confirmed the registration of an FIR against the six firms and said that no arrest has been made in the case. “As the alleged tax defaults date back to the period 2007 to 2009, obtaining details for the same is time consuming. The investigation in the case is on,” he said.

The other side
When mid-day contacted Atul Laxminarayan Goel and Amit Subhashchandra Goenka they could not be reached, but Nigam Kumar, advocate and legal advisor for Playwin (on behalf of Kenlot) said, “The matter is subjudice before the Honourable Supreme Court. In view of this, we are restricted from making any further comment.”

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