Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday struck down the Tamilnadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act of 2021, which bans playing of games like rummy and poker on cyberspace with stakes.
The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy observed that the legislation is ‘excessive and disproportionate’ to its object.
The Court opined that the legislation assailed has to be regarded as something done capriciously, irrationally and which was excessive and disproportionate.
The Bench added that the doctrine of severability is also not applicable since the amended definition of ‘gaming’ runs through the entire legislation.
The verdict was delivered while allowing a batch of writ petitions filed by a host of private companies offering online games. They were represented by senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, A K Ganguli, Mohan Parasaran, C Aryama Sundaram and P S Raman before the Bench.