027-NLR-NLR-V-22-MEEDIN-v.-PERIES.pdf
Present: De Sampayo J.MEED1N v. PERIES.
226—P. C. Colombo, 27,308-
Lotteries Ordinance, No, 8 of 1844—Penal Code, s. 288^~Lottery«—
Gheetu dub,.
Accused started a club for drawing a monthly lottery. Theproposals were as follows: There were to be 150 members, whowere to contribute each a sum of Rs. 2 ■50 a month. There wasto be' a monthly drawing of tickets, and during the first twenty
.months the members who drew the winning tickets were to.bepaid Rs. 50 and cease to be members. , During the next ten monthsthe winner of the ticket was to be paid Rs. 75, and was, similarly, ,to go out. In the thirtieth month the whole scheme was to beconcluded, and the 120 members who would be left without havingdrawn any money in the meantime were to be paid Rs. 75. Provi-sion was also made for a member borrowing a sum not exceedingone-third of his contributions, and for paying to the heirs of amember who might die within the thirty months' the amount ofhis contributions,'together with an additional sum'of Rs. 5.
Held, that the accused was guilty of a breach of section 5 of theLotteries Ordinance, No. 8 of 1844, and section 288 of the PenalCode.'
i
? | MTE facts are set out in the judgment.
M uttunayagam, C.C., for Solicitor-General, appellant.
A. St. V. Jayawardene, for accused, respondent.
June 1920. De Sampayo J.—
In this case the question of the legality of what is known as acheetu club comes up again for consideration.. The accused wascharged under, section 288 of the Penal Code and section 5 of theLotteries Ordinance, No. 8 of 1844, with having kept an office .orplace at Ratmalana for the purpose of drawing a monthly lottery,and with having published proposals for the drawing of suoh a• lottery. The Police Magistrate held that the drawing in thisparticular case was not a lottery and acquitted the accused, and theSolicitor-General has appealed.
In November, 1918, the accused started a club, which he called“ Danarakshaka Samitiya,” with himself as Secretary and his wifeas Treasurer. There were to be 150 members, who were to contri-bute each a sum of Rs. 2*50 a month. There was to be a monthlydrawing, of tickets, and during the first twenty months the members
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who drew the winning ticket were to be paid Rs. 50 and cease to bemembers. Daring the next ten months the winner of the ticket wasto be paid Rs. 75 and was, similarly, to go out. In the thirtiethmonth the whole scheme was to be concluded, and the 120 memberswho would be left without-having drawn any money in the meantimewere to be paid Rs. 75. The rules also contained provisions forlending to a member any sum not exceeding one-third of his con-tributions, for paying to the heirs of a member who nought die withinthe thirty months the amount of his contribution, together with anadditional sum of Rs. 5, and for paying .to the member who might<haw the last oheetu or ticket the sum of Rs. 75, together with anadditional sum of Rs. 5 as a present from the club. These provisionsare put forward on behalf of the accused as showing that the clubwas a benevolent or provident association and not a cheetu clubin the ordinary sense. But if the organization was, in fact, in thenature of a lottery, these provisions would not prevent its being,declared illegal. For, otherwise, a person may start an actuallottery and may yet evade the law by adding to the scheme a fewsmall offers of an innocent kind.
It would seem that the scheme was bound to end in disaster, asit was based on an actuarial fallacy. The total contribution- fotthirty months would be Rs. 10,162*50, and the total amount ofprizes would be Rs. 10,735, so that the, accused would have to payout of pocket Rs. 592*50. His counsel suggests that he is a philan-thropic person, and intended to benefit his fellow-villagers Out of hisown moneys. This kind of charity, however, provokes suspicion.There were other risks which would make the scheme whollyunworkable. For instance, one of the members, who was calledas a witness^ says that he borrowed from the club more than hiscontributions, although according to the rules the limit was to beone-third of the contributions, and, strangely, he adds “if I canrepay my debt, I do so, if 1 cannot, the society absolves me; it is thesame with any other member.9’ 1 have no doubt that the membersbelieve all this, but, I think, they are under a delusion, and require -to be protected against themselves. The police appear to me tohave done the right thing in putting a stop to this extraordinaryclub, whether it is an illegal club os not. The' undesirableness ofits existence is not lessened by the fact that the accused and hiswife are, so to say, the only proprietors of the olub, and have itssole management.. ..'*
*, Now, is- this scheme a lottery or not ? A .“ lottery 99 is notdefined in the Ordinance. In essence it is a distribution of prizesby lot. The argument on behalf of the accused, which has foundacceptance with the Police Magistrate, is that in this scheme thereare really no prizes, because it is alleged that the members draw nomore than their own contributions. But this is not in accordancewith facts. It takes twenty months for a member to contribute
MetdU
( 104 )
1920., RP' SO.rfeut nineteen out of the first twenty members who draw the
Ob sIm*ayo%J$$tjs will have contributed sums ranging from Rs. 2'] 60to
J.
Meedm v.rPeries
Es.- 47"'50only. Similarly, with regard tothe next ten members theywill' have contributed less than Rs. 76 up to the thirtieth month,exbept tbfyjpember who draws the winning ticket in the thirtiethmopth^ Consequently, the thirty members in these two groups,e^ceptthei Justin each group, will draw more than their contributions,and will, thus ym prizes. It was sought to support ,the accused’sacquittal by reference to such English oases as Wallingford v.
. Mutual JSociety,1 but they have no bearing on this ease. -They aredecisions op the application of the English Lottery Acts. One pftheAc£s, pointed out by Wallingford v. Mutual Society {Qwpra)y hasreference to gambling transactions only, apd the pther to persons■lottery• offices.and invited the public to.buy lottery
tic^tsj and the Coiirt held that that particular case did not comeunder either of the Acts. The defendant in that case was a loansociety, registered under the Companies Acts, the object of which
tq, obtain., subscriptions from members, and to lend themmpney/ out of the funds on interest upon * certificates of appro-priari<*Uv s These certificates were documents issued' to' everymembeipn his entering the society. The “appropriations” or^dyances .wm’e made according to the number of certificates held bythe member, and were allotted the first and every fourth one, -freeof.premium or interest, by drawing, while those intermediate wereplotted , to the members tendering the highest premium for theV sanie^ It is* obvious that this is quite different from the schemeip. t]bn present case. Those same English decisions were citedwithout success in the local Full Bench case Sinnaturai v. CMnniah.2This is a strong authority, because there every member of the,cbeetp/club got back all his money and neither more nor less, and. the airguzpent was that under those circumstances there were no.prizes.1 But Hutchinson C.J., who delivered the judgment of the'"Court, observed “ a person who at the beginning of the drawings;(say, at the end pf the first month) gets a sum equivalent tothe wholeof-4he .contributions which he will have to make during the.whole of. the, tphn for which the club is to last, gets a prize .. The
. advantage ^is the use of the getting of the money at the beginning ofthe term’' ., .. . and getting that advantage by means of lots
'you get a prize by the drawing of lots.” And the Court held thatithis was a lottery declared illegal by Ordinance No. 8 of ,1844.
. 'That ;deOiriQn, being that of the Full Bench, is binding upon me,’ hpd’ I fQlJow it all. t$je more readily, because I am in entire accord..with ft. 14 will be observed that in that case the members whosjipuld'dr^w tbe money did not cease to be members, but continuedtp pay their subscription to the end of the term. But ip this casethe ginning members have the further advantage of not paying
-*' j.. * .
MiSiMj 6-4. c. $86.• (1906) 10 N. L. B. 6.
( 105 )
any more subscriptions, and, as I'have shown, they draw morethan their total subscriptions, while even the 120 members, whowould be left after the first thirty members have drawn winningtickets and got the money, would get Es. 75 at the endof the thirtiethmonth, although their total subscriptions during the whole periodwould be Es. 50 only, go that it cannot be said that the memberswould get nothing more or less than their contributions. Tins,therefore, is much more of a lottery than the scheme in Sinnaturai v.Ghinniah (supra) or in the older case, P. C. Colombo, 56,249,1 which,similarly, condemned a cheetu club of the same description as anillegal association falling under the penal provisions of the Ordi-nance No. 8 of 1844.
The order of acquittal is"set aside, and the accused is herebyconvioted on the charges made against him, and is ordered to paya fine of Rs. 50.
Set aside.
1920.
Db SampatoJ.
Metdin v.Ptriet