Date of judgement
4/8/2021
Judge
HON'BLE MR.SANJIB BANERJEE, CHIEF JUSTICE
HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE SENTHILKUMAR RAMAMOORTHY
Paries
Petitioner - Junglee Games India Private Limited and Rahul Nandkumar Bhardwaj
Respondent - The State of Tamil Nadu
Subject
- Whether the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, which prohibits stakes-based online games like rummy and poker should be struck down?
Overview
- The petitioners allege that the State has taken an overly paternalistic posture in enacting extensive changes to existing legislation that they claim infringe on their fundamental rights and are generally unreasonable to the point of being obviously arbitrary.
- The petitioners allege that the State has taken an overly paternalistic posture in enacting extensive changes to existing legislation that they claim infringe on their fundamental rights and are generally unreasonable to the point of being obviously arbitrary.
- Part II of the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, which altered the Tamil Nadu Gaming Act, 1930, is being challenged (hereinafter referred to as the Amending Act).
- Previously, on November 21, 2020, an Ordinance was promulgated that contained essentially the same revisions to the Act of 1930. Act 1 of 2021 took effect on February 25, 2021, when it was gazetted.
- The incident also highlights the dangers of amending a statute that predates not just the Constitution, but also the Government of India Act, 1935, which widely defined the areas in which provincial legislatures might legislate.
- The Amending Act has been challenged not only because it reverses the original statute, but also because of its broad definition of a term that has been judicially interpreted, and thus the apparent blatant attempt to circumvent the law declared by courts, including the Supreme Court, through the legal fiction created in the definition. The issue here is not so much legislative competence as it is the extent to which a law can be made in respect of a field or related subjects specified in a State List Entry.
- In fact, the Amending Act, or the relevant part of the Ordinance that came before it in 2020, added provisions to broaden the scope and effect of the Act of 1930.
- The new statute prohibits all types of games from being played in cyberspace, regardless of whether the game is a game of skill or not, if it is played for a wager, bet, money, or other stakes.
- The Amending Act appears to have three major features: an expanded definition of "gaming"; the addition of Section 3-A to the Act to prohibit wagering or betting in cyberspace (though it actually does much more); and the replacement of the substance of Section 11 of the Act that originally exempted games of "mere skill" from the application of the Act.
Judgement analysis
- A Bench led by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy found that such a blanket ban breaches Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, which guarantees the basic right to practice any profession, trade, or business.
- The ruling came in response to a slew of petitions challenging the ban on internet gaming in the form of online rummy and poker.
- The legislation attacked herein has to be seen as something done by the legislature capriciously, arbitrarily, and without proper basis such that it is excessive and disproportionate," the Court said, referring to the measure's patent unconstitutionality. In addition, the Court stated that the legislation imposes a broad ban that is excessive and disproportionate to the goal it seeks to achieve.
- The Court did clarify, however, that the State Government would be free to establish new legislations to regulate such online games.
- When the State adopts a paternalistic approach, it frequently strives to legalise private life. This creates a tension between the State's authority and desire to act in areas where it believes the individual in general or particular classes of individuals require protection, as well as the individual's privacy rights and every citizen's freedom of choice, the Court observed.
- As a result, the legislation was overturned because it was ultra vires to the Constitution in its entirety.
Conclusion
It was also pointed out that the Act's phrasing is so "brutal and overpowering" that it reeks of unreasonableness and is thus clearly arbitrary. The idea of severability, it was further concluded, would not apply in this case because the altered definition of 'gaming' extends throughout the entire statute, making it impossible to know with any confidence which part of the modification the legislature meant to keep as legal.
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