Gaming is not an offense per se unless conducted in a common gaming house for profit; evidence did not support such circumstances for the petitioners.

ORDER :

K. MURALI SHANKAR, J.

The Criminal Original Petition has been filed, invoking Section 528 B.N.S.S., seeking orders to call for the records pertaining to the FIR in Crime No.88 of 2024 dated 14.08.2024 pending on the file of the Inspector of Police, Arimalam Police Station, Thirumayam Taluk, Pudhukottai District and quash the same.

2. The petitioners are the accused 1 to 3 in Crime No.88 of 2024 for the alleged offences under Sections 8 and 9 of the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws Act 1930 (Amendment 2021).

3. The case of the prosecution is that on 14.08.2024, when the respondent police were on patrol duty in the areas of Ettam Mandakapadi, Meenakshipuram and Santhaipettai, they received a confidential information about gambling activities taking place at Evergreen Recreation Club located behind Perumal Temple in Arimalam Santhaipettai and that the respondent police, after informing to the jurisdictional Magistrate, conducted search in the Evergreen Recreation Club and during the search, the petitioners were found with gambling articles and seized various gambling materials and on that basis, FIR came to be registered.

4. In the FIR, the respondent has listed out the following seized articles from the Evergreen Recreation Club,

5. The case of the petitioners is that Evergreen Recreation Club is a registered club under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975 with Registration No.196 of 1994, that the first petitioner is the Secretary of the Evergreen Recreation Club, that all the account books of the Evergreen Recreation Club is maintained properly by the administrators of the Evergreen Recreation Club, that the Evergreen Recreation Club was established to enhance the general knowledge of the members and the public by providing resources such as books, newspapers and magazines and also to engage the members in sports and physical exercises and indoor games such as chess, carom, etc., and that the members of the club used to play card games without the involvement of money and club never allows its members to engage in any act of gambling.

6. It is the specific contention of the petitioners that since the respondent police had been continuously disturbing and interfering with the peaceful functioning of the club, the petitioners' club was forced to file a writ petition in W.P.(MD)No.16914 of 2021 forbearing the respondent police from entering into the club frequently or interfering or disturbing in the peaceful and smooth daily routine functioning and that when the writ petition was taken up for hearing, the learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side) submitted that the police had just advised the club to fix CCTV camera, recording the same, the writ petition was ordered to be closed vide order dated 23.03.2022.

7. The learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side) appearing for the respondent would submit that on receipt of credible information that gambling activities were going on in the Evergreen Recreation Club, search was conducted after sending pre-intimation to the jurisdictional Court and the petitioners were found with gambling articles and after seizing the gambling materials and other articles, FIR came to be registered.

8. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners w