The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday, March 22, said it was committed to banning online gambling and that all efforts are on to invoke the existing laws to serve the purpose. Chief Minister MK Stalin was fully aware of the evils of online gambling that destroyed several families, state Law Minister S Regupathy said. The previous AIADMK government had promulgated an ordinance to ban online gambling "in a hurry" leading to the Madras High Court striking it down, he claimed.

"We have gone to the Supreme Court to uphold the law enacted by the AIADMK government. Let's hope that the apex court would deliver a good verdict on Tamil Nadu government's appeal against the Madras High Court order quashing the ban on online gambling," Regupathy told the Assembly responding to the call attention motion moved by AIADMK top leader and Leader of Opposition K Palaniswami. The minister declined to discuss further on the subject as the matter was subjudice.

Raising the issue, former Chief Minister Palaniswami asked the state government to take stern measures to ban online rummy as several families were getting ruined because their youth gambled and lost lakhs of rupees in the online game. "Some ended up borrowing hefty loans while others committed suicide due to staggering losses," Palaniswami alleged. He recalled that his government had promulgated an ordinance in 2020 to ban online gambling but it was stayed by the Madras HC on August 3 last year.

While striking it down, then Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy of the Madras HC said that such a ban will be unconstitutional. The court observed that allowing the legislation can be seen as erratic, unreasonable and also excessive and disproportionate. Pointing all these, the court struck down the amendment as ultra vires of the constitution. However, the court noted that despite the bench striking down the amendment, the state government should present a new legislation to regulate online games.