Court asks lottery distribution company to pay taxes in India

The Bombay High Court, an Indian court in the state of Maharashtra, has ordered a lottery distribution company to pay tax on the proceeds of lottery ticket sales. The court summarily rejected the challenge on Maharashtra Tax on Lotteries Act from 2006. The petitioner, Mangal Murti Marketing, a sub-distributor of the state-organised lottery operated by two other Indian state governments of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, sought to challenge the provisions of the act, but the court rejected the argument.

The petitioner’s counsel P S Raman argued that the act was passed to restrict and forbid the sale of other states’ lottery tickets in Maharashtra. He claimed that the Lottery Regulation Act had already been enacted in 1998 to regularise the conduct of state organised lottery business and with a view to offer security to ticket purchasers and claimed that the state government cannot levy taxes on another state government’s revenues.