The All India Gaming Federation and several gaming companies withdrew their petitions to the Madras High Court on Wednesday, challenging the Tamil Nadu (TN) government's recent ordinance banning all forms of online gaming. The bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Krishnakumar also granted the petitioners the right to file new petitions once the ordinance takes effect.

The Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Ordinance, 2022 was challenged constitutionally by the Federation and other petitioners.

They claimed that only "games of chance" and not "games of skill" could be prohibited in India. In their petitions, the petitioners claimed that the TN government incorrectly classified skill-based games like rummy and poker as games of chance. According to them, this was done so that such games could be prohibited under the new ordinance.

Senior counsel Aryama Sundaram and Sajan Poovayya, who represented the Federation and one of the gaming companies, respectively, argued that they did not need to wait for the ordinance's effective date to be published.

Sundaram claimed the ordinance had already been notified and gazetted. He claimed that the TN government's claim that the ordinance is awaiting the Governor's assent simply meant that it had yet to decide on a date when it would go into effect. “There is no questions of consent of governor. It's only that the ordinance will come into effect on the date notified. As of today the ordinance has not come into effect. I agree with this argument of Sibal. But then till such ordinance come into effect your officers cannot come and take action against the companies”

Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared on behalf of one of the petitioners, also told the court that, despite the fact that the ordinance had not yet become an Act, gaming companies were already feeling the heat from state authorities.

Observing that the court could not intervene at a time when the ordinance had not yet taken effect, the court allowed the petitioners to withdraw the suit and file new petitions.

Case Title: All India Gaming Federation v. State of Tamil Nadu and other connected cases

Case No: WP No. 29911 of 2022