Madras high court: No coercive action against e-gaming firm

CHENNAI: The Madras high court has instructed the CB-CID not to take any coercive action against gaming platform PlayGames24x7 in connection with death of two people who had committed suicide due to financial loss incurred by playing online rummy in the platform.
Justice G Chandrasekharan issued the oral instruction to the agency on Tuesday on a plea moved by the company challenging notices issued by the CB-CID in connection with the cases.
When the plea came up for hearing, counsel for the CB-CID sought time to file the counter. Responding to this, the petitioner insisted that the court should provide interim protection to it till such time.
However, since counsel for CB-CID informed the court that they had no intention to take any action against the firm for the time being, the court issued the oral instruction.
PlayGames 24x7 alleged that the crime branch police, under the guise of conducting inquiry in connection with the suicides, are harassing its employees.
According to the petitioner, it had received a notice from the crime branch last year informing it that an inquiry was being conducted to probe the death of one Manikandan, who had died of suicide on January 2, 2022 allegedly after playing the online game.
Similarly, on February 24, the crime branch sent another notice to the petitioner informing that it had been charged under Section 302 of IPC for Manikandan's death. The crime branch asked the company's official to appear before it and also sought several documents and other information from them.
"Charging the company for murder and demanding irrelevant information amounts to an abuse of power on part of the state agency and is an attempt to achieve indirectly what the state has failed to achieve directly by imposing total ban on online rummy," the petitioner said.
Claiming that the company was not responsible for Manikandan's suicide, it wanted the court to quash the notice and to direct the police not to harass the company and its employees.