It doesn’t matter how hard the police crack down on illegalities, when there is no clear provision in the law that defines those ‘illegalities’. This was some part of the conundrum faced by law enforcement recently, when 12 accused in 12 different cases were acquitted. The accused were arrested and put on trial as alleged matka bookies, but the court ruled that the investigation was conducted in a shoddy manner and no evidence existed to put these men behind bars.
The problem with all 12 cases and their subsequent acquittal by order of the court, was that while the police may have arrested 12 men who were allegedly matka bookies, there was
no substantial evidence to prove it. The judges observed that
none of the people who were placing bets with these alleged
bookies were arrested and hence there was no corroborating
evidence. The police entered objects like pens, carbon papers
and slip books into evidence, but again these were not mentioned
by law as being objects of gambling. All of the accused
just denied that they were bookies.
And so they were set free.
Matka has existed in Goa for decades,
and became really popular
from the 80s onwards. The reason
why this form of gambling is so
popular is because one can even
lay small bets with a handful of rupees.
While there is no way to actually
track and collate figures from
matka gambling, it’s easy to estimate
that the game in Goa itself involves lakhs or even crores
of rupees per day. But the biggest problem that law enforcement
faces in Goa is that there is no proper definition of matka
in the law. The Goa, Daman and Diu Public Gambling Act
of 1976 needs to define the ‘game’ of matka and classify it as
gambling. Section 1 defines common gaming as, among other
things ‘on the wagering or betting on the digits of a numerical
figure arrived at by manipulation in any manner whatsoever,
or on the order of the digits, or on the digits themselves…’ This
does basically skirt around the ‘game’ of matka but needs to
be more specific. Once that happens, it will give the police a
lot more power in terms of policing and the force and special
branch will be able to conduct better investigations and arrest
bookies according to the Act. Once that happens, no court will
be able to acquit anyone.
Each state has the power to amend their own gambling laws.
The Goa government has done this on two occasions, in 1992
and 1996, to allow casinos “ onshore and offshore “ in the
State. There is no reason why such amendments that allow for
better policing in the case of matka cannot be introduced.
Gambling cannot be looked at through the lens of the class
system. If casinos are legal then matka can be made legal. This
can also create a substantial revenue stream for the government
and this way it will also be regulated according to the
law. If not, then gambling as a whole should be made illegal.
However, if the government still wants to crack down on
matka, then it has to provide the police force with the teeth to
clamp down on those who circumvent or break the law. Right
now, law enforcement doesn’t have the legs to stand on in this
regard.
