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Upholding the regulations brought in by the Tamil Nadu Government, making mandatory Aadhaar-based KYC verification and night ban on online Real Money Games (RMG)

Upholding the regulations brought in by the Tamil Nadu Government, making mandatory Aadhaar-based KYC verification and night ban on online Real Money Games (RMG), the Madras High Court on

Tuesday dismissed the petitions filed by online gaming companies, making it clear that the state was empowered to impose reasonable restrictions to protect the health and well-being of its

citizens.

A Division Bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and K Rajasekar observed “This court feels that the submission of the state is not restricted to paternalism but goes a step further to ensure the

health of its citizens under Article 21 of the Constitution.” The court also rejected the contention that the regulations were violative of a person’s right to privacy, stating that it

comes with restrictions.

The state government had brought in the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022, following the rise in suicides of those who had lost huge amounts

of money in online gambling. Besides providing for the establishment of the Tamil Nadu Online Gaming Authority (TNOGA), it has prohibited minors under the age of 18 from playing Real Money

Games (RMG), made Aadhaar KYC verification mandatory, and imposed a night ban on playing the games from midnight to 5 am. Further, Online Gaming companies are required to display pop-up

caution messages every half an hour when a player is playing for more than an hour.

Moreover, the Online Gaming companies have been instructed to display continuously the message ‘Online Gaming is Addictive in Nature’ in the login page and fix daily, weekly and monthly

monetary limit for each player and the amount spent when he deposits money.

Challenging these regulations, the gaming firms relied on the aspect of right to privacy and sought to declare the restrictions as arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional. The petitioners

claimed that it was the personal choice of the players to ruin their lives, and the state with a paternalistic view could not act as a stepfather to give diktats as to how to live and decide

on an individual’s health unless and otherwise it had a bearing on public health. They argued that since the government’s previous efforts to ban online games were unsuccessful, it was

resorting to doing so indirectly.

Further, it was contended that the state government could not make laws under the Information Technology Act, a statute passed by Parliament which had covered the apprehensions of the state.

Instead of making Aadhaar mandatory, they wanted any document approved by the RBI for a KYC check.