HC dismisses ex-cop’s plea over ‘stolen’ ₹20-cr Xmas-New Year bumper lottery ticket, lifts stay on prize payout

Kochi: A retired Kerala police officer’s extraordinary claim that his ₹20-crore bumper lottery ticket was stolen after he accidentally couriered it inside a parcel of sacred Sabarimala ghee failed to convince the Kerala High Court, which on Thursday dismissed his petition and cleared the way for the prize money to be released to the ticket holder.

Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas dismissed the petition submitted by Sajimon KK, 57, a retired Assistant Sub-Inspector from Pazhoor near Piravom in Ernakulam, after the state lotteries’ department produced the original winning ticket before the court in a sealed cover, as directed earlier. According to the department’s report, all security features on the ticket were intact and there was no indication of tampering.

The petitioner had earlier stated that he had written his name, address and phone number on the backside of the ticket before it went missing. However, the ticket produced before the court did not contain any such writing.

“The ticket submitted in a sealed cover has been opened in the court. Since the report says all the security features of the ticket are intact and there is no proof of tampering, the High Court dismissed the petition,” said Vivek M, counsel for the petitioner.

With the dismissal of the plea, the stay on the bumper prize disbursal has been vacated, allowing the Kerala Lotteries Department to proceed with disbursing the ₹20-cr first prize of the person who submitted the original ticket.

The ruling brings to an end a case that had drawn attention for its unusual chain of events, which the petitioner had argued resulted in the loss of his supposed jackpot ticket.

Sajimon had approached the HC claiming that the ticket, numbered XC138455, originally belonged to him but was stolen after he mistakenly sent it away in a courier parcel.

According to his petition, the story began on December 10, 2025. Sajimon, who had invested his retirement savings in a 17-seater tempo traveller to ferry Sabarimala pilgrims, found a steel vessel containing “Ghee Abhisheka Prasadam” left behind in his vehicle after a pilgrimage trip.

He later traced the owner of the vessel to Bengara Naidu from Visakhapatnam, who asked him to keep it safely until relatives visiting Sabarimala for the Makaravilakku festival could collect it.

Sajimon, a regular buyer of Kerala lottery tickets, said he placed his Christmas Bumper 2025 lottery ticket, which he bought earlier, inside the carry bag containing the sacred ghee vessel, hoping the proximity to the prasadam would bring him luck.

The petition said matters took an unexpected turn on January 24, the day the lottery results were announced. While supervising a drinking water pipeline project in his locality, Sajimon allegedly fell into a pit and suffered a head injury, leaving him disoriented for nearly a week. Due to this he forgot where he had kept the winning ticket, though he had ‘known’ that it was his ticket that won the prize. He and his wife had searched for the ticket but they couldn't find it.

During this period, Naidu reportedly requested that the ghee vessel be sent by courier instead, as his relatives could not travel to Sabarimala.

On January 30, still recovering from the injury, Sajimon took the carry bag to a DTDC courier office in Piravom. Since he did not know how to pack a steel container filled with semi-liquid ghee, he handed over the bag to courier staff, who packed it for him for a fee of ₹390.

Only after leaving the courier office, he claimed, did he realise that the lottery ticket was still inside the bag.

Sajimon later alleged that when he tried to stop the delivery, the courier staff assured him the parcel would be intercepted and returned. But when the vessel reached Naidu in Visakhapatnam, the carry bag and the ticket inside it was missing.

Suspecting that someone at the courier office had taken the ticket after noticing it during the packing process, he lodged a complaint with the Piravom police and approached the lottery department asking it not to release the prize money.

Concerned that the prize might be claimed by someone else before the investigation concluded, Sajimon moved the High Court seeking a writ of mandamus directing the Kerala Lotteries Department to freeze the distribution of the ₹20-crore first prize.

Taking note of the plea earlier, the High Court had directed the lottery department not to disburse the prize until further orders and asked it to produce the ticket submitted for claiming the jackpot.