New Delhi: It is an “important issue”, the Supreme Court said on Friday while hearing a plea seeking directions to the Centre to prohibit online gambling and betting platforms that allegedly operate under the guise of social and e-sports games.
A bench of justices J B Pardiwala and K V Viswanathan asked the counsel appearing for the petitioners to serve a copy of the plea to the lawyer representing the government.
“It is an important issue. You serve one copy to him. Let him look into it. He will come back to us,” the bench told advocate Virag Gupta, who was appearing for the petitioners.
The bench asked the government’s counsel to look into the petition and assist it on the next date of hearing.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC) and Shourya Tiwari that urged it to direct the government to clamp down on the proliferation of betting and gambling applications, which they claim were inflicting widespread social and economic harm across the country.
During the hearing, Gupta told the bench that the plea was regarding protection of 15 crore children who were suffering because of the “vacuum” in the current law.
He referred to the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025.
Gupta said as per Seventh schedule of the Constitution, betting and gambling falls under the ambit of the State List.
“The central government is the gate keeper. They have power to issue the blocking orders and as per reply given in the parliament, around 1,528 gaming apps have been blocked,” he said.
The bench told him to serve a copy of the petition to the government’s counsel.
“Let him take instructions in the matter and he will come back to us and then we will pass some appropriate orders,” the bench said.
The plea has sought a direction to union ministries of Electronics and Information Technology, Information and Broadcasting, Finance and Youth Affairs and Sports “to do a harmonious interpretation of provisions of Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and laws made by State Legislatures, to prohibit online gambling and betting games operating in the guise of social and e-sports games”.
The petition names six respondents, including four union ministries and the two leading app store operators, Apple Inc. and Google India Pvt Ltd.
“Betting and gambling is regarded as an unlawful activity in the majority of the states in India. Several cases are contested in high courts wherein affidavits were filed by the government and gaming platforms. Upon analysing the same it is reported that more than 65 crore persons are playing such games creating annual business of more than Rs 1.8 lakh crores for these platforms in India,” the plea said.
In one of the prayers, it has sought blocking orders under Section 69A of the IT Act against all unlawful betting and gambling platforms in the country.
The plea has also sought directions to the RBI, NPCI and UPI platforms to not allow any transactions of online money games which are not registered in India
It has sought directions for protection of data of minors already collected by online gaming companies.
