Tamil Nadu Governor gives assent to Bill banning online gambling

The State Assembly adopted a resolution earlier urging the Centre to instruct the Governor to give assent within a specific period.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin speaking during the Budget Session of the State Assembly, in Chennai on April 10. | Photo Credit: ANI

Hours after the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly adopted a resolution against the Governor for an unprecedented second time on April 10, Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi gave his assent to a Bill banning online gambling in the State. More than 40 persons had died by suicide in just over three years after suffering massive losses after playing online gambling, according to government and police data.

A State government source confirmed that the Governor had given his assent to the Bill, which he had earlier sent back after withholding it for over four months. There are 13 other Bills pending with the Governor.

On March 8 this year, the Governor had sent back the Bill seeking clarifications, and had stated that the Assembly had no legislative competence to draw up a Bill of this nature.

Strangely, the Governor had, on October 3, 2022, promulgated an Ordinance with similar wordings. On October 19, 2022, the Tamil Nadu Assembly introduced a Bill to replace the Ordinance to ban online rummy and poker. The ban was on the basis of a report by Justice K. Chandru (retd), a former Madras High Court judge, who was commissioned by the State government to consider all aspects of the issue.

Justice Chandru, who has authored several path-breaking judgments, had given a general outline on how he went about the task of identifying online gambling, and stressed that the activity should be banned.

Some members of the online gambling lobby met the Governor even when the Bill was pending with him. There was no clarification from the Governor or his office on what this meeting was about. On March 23, 2023, the Assembly re-adopted the Bill and sent it to the Governor for his assent.

The Tamil Nadu government has been careful not to club online games and online gambling in the same Bill. It was because both these entities were clubbed that the first attempt at regulation fell through. Several other State governments too had passed Bills of a similar nature and most of these new laws have been challenged in court.

Tamil Nadu Bill

The Tamil Nadu Bill clearly defines what a game of chance is and what criteria it has to fulfill to meet this definition. But there is a long legal battle ahead for Tamil Nadu as the courts, as late as 2021, have reaffirmed that online rummy is a game of skill. PRS India said that in 1967, the Supreme Court noted that rummy is not entirely a game of chance like three cards.

While DMK allies have steadfastly stood with the government in achieving its task, the opposition had tried to ask several other relevant questions such as the need to ban alcohol in the State, as it is also a menace among the youth and daily wage earners.

The DMK has often argued that the ban on online gambling is to save the poor from chasing a dream, which is often only a mirage. A party spokesperson said that many of those who died by suicide were young people, and at least three were college students.

Earlier in the day, the Tamil Nadu Assembly adopted a resolution against the Governor, “unanimously” insisting that the Central government and the President “immediately issue appropriate instructions to the Governor” to give his assent to the Bills passed by the Assembly “within a specific period”. Earlier, all members of the AIADMK staged a walkout. Two BJP members voted against the resolution.

The resolution moved by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wanted the Governor to stop turning Raj Bhavan into a “politicking Bhavan” and warned that if the Governor intended to impede the functioning of the Assembly, the government would not sit back and watch “with folded hands”.

He added that the Governor should engage with the government with an open mind and not engage in baseless criticism of the government in open forums.

The resolution urged “the Union government and the President to prescribe a specific time limit to the respective Governors to give assent to the Bills passed by the Legislatures which constitute the voice of the people of the State.” It said that this was needed “in order to establish the legislative power of the Legislative Assembly”.

It wanted the Central government and the President to ask the Governor to refrain from “continuing to act against the interests of the people of Tamil Nadu, tarnishing the principles of democracy and the sovereignty” of the Legislative Assembly.

Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi. | Photo Credit: M. PERIASAMY

Demanding that the Constitution be amended, the Chief Minister said that it was not proper that a Bill passed by a legislature consisting of people’s representatives should require assent from a Governor, who is appointed by the Central government.

While being critical of the Governor in each sentence, the Chief Minister made it a point to mention that since the post of the Governor was a constitutional one, he and leaders before him in the DMK had made it a point to accord the respect that the post deserved.

Stalin accused Ravi of not carrying out his administrative duties and of becoming the mouthpiece of some sectarian elements. He said that while there was a provision for Parliament to impeach the President, no such provision existed for Legislative Assemblies when it came to the question of removing Governors.

Latest spat

The latest round of the Stalin-Ravi slugfest began with Ravi’s assertion on April 6 that if he withheld a Bill, it was dead. In a meeting with civil service aspirants at Raj Bhavan, he said: “When you say ‘withhold,’ the Bill is dead.”

A shocked Stalin reacted a few hours after this assertion by the Governor. Advising him not to think of himself as a “great dictator”, Stalin, referring to Shamsher Singh vs State of Punjab, 1974, said: “The constitutional conclusion is that the Governor is but a shorthand expression for the State government and the President is an abbreviation of the Central government.”

In the April 6 meeting, the Governor had claimed that his “first and foremost duty” was to protect the Constitution. Commenting on this in the Assembly on April 10, the Chief Minister said: “I would not say that the Governor does not know the Constitution. But his political beliefs have swallowed his duty to the Constitution. That is why he is going against the secular concepts enshrined in the preface of the Constitution.”

Representatives of political parties, barring those from the BJP and AIADMK, condemned the Governor’s withholding of Bills. A few members said that the problem of “aggressive Governors” existed only in States where a party opposed to the BJP was in power. BJP-ruled States or States where a party friendly to the BJP was in power did not face any problems from the Governor.