  We study non-perturbative quantization of 3d gravity with positive
cosmological constant (de Sitter space being the prototype vacuum solution,
whose Euclideanization of course gives the three sphere) on the background
topology of lens space, which is a three spheres modulo a discrete group.
Instead of the strategy followed by a recent work \cite{Castro:2011xb}, which
compares results in the second and first order formulations of gravity, we
concentrate on the later solely. We note, as a striking feature, that the
quantization, that relies heavily on the axiomatics of topological quantum
field theory (TQFT) can only be consistently carried by augmenting the
conventional theory by an additional topological term coupled through a
dimensionless parameter. More importantly the introduction of this additional
parameter renders the theory finite.
