THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It might have been Congress leader V D Satheesan’s petition that led to the High Court verdict ordering a CBI inquiry into other-state lottery violations but the verdict by no means is a victory for the Congress party. While former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan was relentlessly shooting missives to the Centre seeking a CBI probe, the Congress Government at the Centre was trying its damnedest to stall a CBI probe. Initially, the Centre tried to complicate things by citing technicalities. The Union Home Ministry, in an affidavit filed in the High Court on April 5, had said that the CBI falls under the administrative control of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and that a notification under section 6 of the Delhi Police Special Establishment (DPSE) Act was a must. V S Achuthanandan said such a demand was unconstitutional. He, citing an earlier Supreme Court order, argued that the Parliament had not specified any such mode for a CBI probe. He, in turn, demanded an immediate CBI enquiry on the basis of the relevant documents he had already furnished. Now, a CBI probe has been ordered without the State Government having adhered to any of the technicalities insisted upon by the Centre. Finding that the State Government was hell-bent on a CBI probe, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram even came up with a compromise offer. In a letter to the State Government in February this year, Chidambaram put forward two options. ‘’Either persist with the legal battle or take steps to resolve all pending issues with lottery organising states with the assistance of the Union Home Ministry.’’ The LDF Government rejected the mediation offer and opted to battle it out. Satheeshan’s petition had stated that the State Government was not acting on the findings of the Sibi Mathews report which detected serious violations of the lottery mafia. The state unit of the Congress had also interpreted Achuthanandan’s charge that Rs 80,000 crore were siphoned out of the state in the last five years as an indictment of his own Government. But Chidambaram, in his February letter, concedes that only the Centre could rein in wayward other-state lotteries. The Union Home Minister had also refused to entertain the State Government’s demand that section 6 of the Lottery (Regulation) Act, 1998, be amended to give states the power to restrict and ban the entry of other-state lotteries. Chidambaram argued that the power could be misused. Further, by the Centre’s own admission, it had communicated the violations to the Bhutan Government only late in 2010 when details of anti-lottery violations were with the Centre right from 2005.
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