Recording Advocate General Vijay Narayan’s submission that the Act on online gambling may be tabled in the Assembly in January, the division bench comprising Justice R Subbiah and Justice C Saravanan posted it for final hearing on January 18 after the State sought more time to file counter affidavit.

During the hearing, the Advocate General opposed granting interim stay and submitted that the ordinance would have no effect on the operations of the petitioners as only Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have banned online rummy.

He added that the government was set to table an Act against online games in the forthcoming Assembly session, which may not necessarily be in the same form as the ordinance under challenge. Hence, the relevancy of the claim could be taken up after Pongal, he said.

Appearing for online rummy sites, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi sought to be excluded from the ban on the basis that it was already settled that online rummy was a game of skill and that they can establish that online rummy was safer.

When the Advocate General argued that there was evidence that children were playing online rummy using parents’ credit card, Rohatgi countered that even if children were playing, it would not make online rummy a game of chance.