O R D E R

(Order of the Court was delivered by N.KIRUBAKARAN, J)

This Public Interest Litigation has been filed for a noble object of prohibiting online gambling. The Petitioner contends that precious lives are lost because of the online rummy hosted by gambling websites as people are getting addicted. Therefore, the Petitioner gave a representation on 26.10.2020, to prohibit the online rummy. As it was not considered, the Petitioner has come before this Court.

2.When the matter came up for admission on 03.11.2020, this Court passed the following order:

“It is disheartening to note that about ten precious lives have been lost due to the online gambling. Therefore, this Writ Petition has been filed before this Court seeking for issuance of a Writ of Mandamus to direct the official respondents to take appropriate action to ban Online Rummy hosted by the seventh respondent and others.

2. One of us (The Honourable Mr.Justice B.PUGALENDHI)

while disposing of Crl.O.P.(MD)No.6568 of 2020, by order dated 24.07.2020 went into detail as to how this Online Gambling in the name of online games is causing loss of lives and insisting a necessity to regulate the programmes on par with the Telangana State Government, wherein the Online Gambling has been banned by virtue of the Telangana Gaming Act (Amended Act, 2017), which prohibits all forms of gambling for money.

3. The Telangana Government further moved a Bill to amend the Telangana Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Dacoits, Drug-Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Land-Grabbers Act, 1986, by including “Gaming Offender”, who commits or abets the commission of offences punishable under the Telangana Gaming Act, 1974.

Paragraph Nos.37 to 40 of the said order are extracted hereunder:

“37. It is to be noted at this juncture that except the decisions in Varun Gumber's case [High Court of Punjab and Haryana]; Gurdeep Singh Sachar's case [Bombay High Court]; and Chandresh Sankhla's case [High Court of Rajasthan] which dealt with the fantasy sport - Dream11, none of the precedents referred supra deal with online gaming. The decisions discussed supra are in respect of recreational clubs and not specifically refer about any virtual area, like, Internet. Neither the Public Gaming Act, 1867, nor the Tamil Nadu Gaming Act, 1930, specifically speaks about such virtual area, as the advent of such online games are very recent. In fact, the Hon'ble Supreme Court, while dealing with an appeal, has held that the issue pertaining to online rummy has not arisen at all, till date.

38. India has a rich heritage with a diverse range of sports / games. Sports is not only an important source of entertainment, but also imparts value of hard work, discipline and co- operation. To regulate the physical sports / games, we are having a legislative set up, but having such a set up to deal with the emerging online games / virtual games is the need of the hour. A comprehensive regulatory framework by a regulatory body is necessary to regulate the online sports and to curb any illegal activities as well. In fact, such regulation of online sports would encourage investment in the sector, which could lead to technological advancements as well as generation of revenue and employment.

39. We should not loose sight of the fact that nowadays, almost in all the social media, youngsters are being attracted, to play such online games, by alluring with prize money. Gaming sites are also partaking a slice on the winning hand, as of a virtual gambling house. In fact, these online games lure the unemployed youth that they can earn money by playing these games.

40. Saint Thiruvalluvar in 934th and 939th couplet of Thirukkural described the evils of gambling as follows:

rpWik gybra;J rPuHpf;Fk; Njpd;

tWik jUtbjhd;W ,y;. ... 934 which means—

“There is nothing else that brings poverty like gambling which causes many a misery and destroys one's reputation.”

cilbry;tk; Cz;xsp fy;tpvd;W Ie;Jk;

milahthk; Mak; bfhspd;. ... 939 whi