22nd Law Commission headed by Justice Raj Awasthi, former Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court has written a letter to Ministry Of Electronics and Information Technology (“MeitY”) to put its draft policy on online gaming on hold until it comes up with a “comprehensive” report on the matter.
The law commission has taken Suo moto cognizance of addiction among youths, financial losses and fraudulent practices followed in online gaming and has invited MeitY to for a meeting to discuss in framing the policy for online gaming.
Law commission believes that conundrum created due to laws enacted by various states may increase further as more states are planning to come up with their own laws relating to online gaming. Despite various Supreme Court and High Court Judgments some states have banned games like poker and rummy whereas such games are allowed in another states.
The draft Online gaming rules also suffers from various issues like conflict between center and state laws on online game, definition of an online game, distinction between game of skill and game of chance etc. The position of law is not clear and if the draft online gaming rules are notified it would lead chaos and confusion.