Experts have predicted that India's online gaming rules may give rise to all sorts of jurisdictional issues—now, inter-ministerial regulatory overlaps may be on the cards. Why it matters: Under the gaming rules, the IT Ministry has given itself powers to impose comprehensive compliance obligations for online real money games on non-online real money games. This can be done on various grounds, including "the sovereignty and integrity of India or security of the State or friendly relations with foreign States or public order, or preventing user harm". The problem is, it may not have the power to do so for certain kinds of games—which may throw up an unexpected legal challenge. "If you look at the allocation of [regulatory] powers, the allocation of powers for regulating non [online] real money games, which is online sports, is not with the IT Ministry," said Arun Prabhu, Partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, at the All Indian Game Developers' Forum's Consilience conference last Friday in Bengaluru. "The allocation of powers is with the Ministry of Sport. So, I'm very curious about how the IT Ministry is making rules about something [non-online real money games] by deeming it [to be online real money games]. Can I say I will increase my allocation of powers by deeming that this game falls within this category? Does it become a game of real money game because I feel it is? It's an interesting source for a constitutional challenge." Last December, a government notification stated that the IT Ministry would be the…
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