The Madras High Court on Monday refused to grant any kind of interim relief to online gaming companies pending adjudication of a batch of cases filed by them as well as the All India Gaming Federation challenging the constitutional validity of Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022.
Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu told senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the petitioners, that they would prefer to take up the writ petitions for final hearing anytime rather than hearing the matter for the purpose of interim relief since the arguments would be identical.
After giving an overview of the case to the judges, Mr. Rohatgi and Mr. Singhvi pressed for interim orders on the ground that the online gaming companies were suffering everyday and were facing the threat of coercive criminal action despite the Supreme Court having held categorically that rummy and poker were games of skill.
However, senior counsel Kapil Sibal, representing the State government, intervened and told the judges that the plea for interim relief was argued at length on April 27 before a Division Bench of the then Acting Chief Justice T. Raja and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy and the judges ultimately refused to grant any kind of interim protection to the petitioners.
Therefore, he insisted the present writ petitions challenging the State law could be taken up for final hearing straightaway and decided finally instead of considering the plea for interim orders. Finding force in his submissions, the Chief Justice asked the other lawyers: “What would be the distinction between arguing for interim and final relief?”
“I think the arguments would be the same for interim as well as final orders,” the CJ said and asked the counsel to agree upon any date convenient to them for commencing final arguments. Though Mr. Sibal suggested the hearing could commence on July 20, Mr. Rohatgi expressed his intent to argue on July 13 itself in view of the urgency involved.
The judges accepted the request and said all counsel representing the online gaming companies could make their submissions on July 13 and Mr. Sibal could reply to those arguments on July 20 or any other date convenient to him.
