The High Court of Karnataka has given the green signal for continuing investigation against 26 bookies operating in Bangalore Turf Club Ltd. (BTCL) for allegedly evading tax and illegally collecting betting amount.
Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty passed the order while rejecting the petitions filed by Surya and Co. and 25 other bookies. The petitioners had questioned the legality of the first information report (FIR) registered against them in January.
“The allegations found in the first information report and the material collected by the investigation officer during the investigation prima facie make out a cognizable offence against the accused. The allegations against the accused are of a very serious nature and the accused, among other allegations, allegedly have misappropriated crores of money collected by them towards payment of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Tax Deducted at Source (TDS),” the court observed.
The court permitted the continuation of the investigation by vacating its January 29 interim order of stay due to which the probe was stalled.
Background
An inspector of the Central Crime Branch (CCB), based on credible information about illegality in the BTCL, had conducted a preliminary verification at the club and later registered the FIR at High Grounds Police Station on January 13.
It was alleged in the FIR that some of the bookies, who had secured the licence from the State government, were found allegedly evading crores of rupees of tax by not maintaining proper records and the register on collection and deposit of GST and TDS. And some of the unlicenced bookies were indulging in the illegal collection of betting amounts from punters in connivance with some of the staff of the BTCL.
It was pointed out in the FIR that on January 12, after four races, the police had seized ₹3.45 crore from the bookies. It was found during the preliminary investigation that only ₹24.96 crore was collected by bookies from 1,507 races conducted at the BTCL between June 1, 2023 and January 18, 2024.
If the average of a day’s collection of the race is taken into consideration, for 1,507 races that were conducted between June 2023 and January 2024, the approximate amount that should have been collected, comes up to ₹1,302.57 crore, and therefore there is a huge difference in the total collection of betting amount reported by the accused bookies for this period, it was alleged by the police.
