Agartala, July 26: Five months after Tripura introduced its online lottery amidst strong opposition, it has run into rough weather again, facing allegations of a Rs 60-crore scam. Duplication of results, failure to give wide publicity and notification in state gazettes as stipulated by the rules, have led to allegations of embezzlement being made against Videocon International Limited since the online lottery began on February 5 this year.

In a media-conference, leader of the Opposition Ratanlal Nath demanded a CBI investigation into the case and said an FIR should be filed against the company. He also demanded a high-level judicial inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge. He said finance minister Badal Chowdhury should be removed and the ?cheating of people? in the name of lottery should be stopped immediately.

Nath said Prakash Panchal, a Pune-based distributor of the Tripura online lottery, had filed a complaint with the chief secretary, asserting that Videocon International had changed the results of 35 of the 51 draws on the V Lott game on June 24 and 38 of the 51 draws on June 25.

?The modus operandi is simple ? papers notifying the results here are displayed on a board and the main sheet is transmitted to Videocon?s main server and there the Videocon International authorities make arbitrary changes in the results before making them available online,? Nath said.

Panchal collected the result sheets from the department of institutional finance of the state government and compared it with the online results displayed by the company through its own server.

Initially a joint venture launched by Videocon International and the government-sponsored Tripura Online Lottery Private Limited, its rules were framed under the title of ?Tripura computer network lottery rules?.

?But the rules have been broken at every step as the finance minister was the chairman of the committee. It was amended in November last year and the chief secretary became the chairman,? the leader of the Opposition said.

The results of the draws were to be widely publicised but this was not done either.

The director of institutional finance, R.K. Datta, said he had received a copy of Panchal?s complaint and would discuss the matter with the chief secretary. He, however, denied knowledge of any scandal.