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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted the Central Government more time to file its response on the ‘maintainability’ of a PIL challenging the constitutional and legislative validity of the Information Technology Amendment Rules, 2023 pertaining to online gaming.

During the hearing today, the counsel appearing for the Centre said, "At the outset, may I only humbly submit that we were permitted to file a short affidavit in order to assist this court on the maintainability. However, one more week may be permitted".

To this, the counsel for the petitioner NGO submitted, "Let notice be issued in this. A statement was made in the Parliament as well as by an affidavit in the Supreme Court". 

Taking note of the submissions made, the bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula said, "It doesn't have the competency" and granted time to the Centre to file its response on the PIL.

Accordingly, the bench posted the matter for further consideration on October 12. 

Notably, on July 13, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma said that the PIL was not a Public Interest Litigation but a "proxy personalised litigation".

"Please see the writ petition and see the doublespeak...Your lordships must enquire who is the petitioner. These are companies who do not want to be amenable to the regulations, perhaps this individual is a front”, he had said.

The ASG had also submitted that the regulations have been formulated after consultations involving an inter-ministerial committee, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NITI Aayog and the Cabinet Secretary.

The Noida-based NGO has filed the present plea through Advocate Sakshi Tikmany.

The petitioner-NGO stated, “The Impugned Rules seek to create a framework for regulating online gaming, including online real money games by classifying them as ‘intermediaries’ under the IT Act, 2000 and imposing several due diligence requirements and compliances such as Know Your Customer (KYC) verification, appointment of grievance redressal and nodal officers, taking registration and membership of Self-Regulatory Body (SRB), and tasks these SRBs with certifying certain categories of online real money games as permissible online games etc”.

The NGO stated that there should not only be “effective control and regulation” of online games and gambling or betting activities but there should also be an “effective mechanism” for such regulatory measures and that the same conform to the four corners of powers granted under the Constitution and other legislative provisions.

The plea also stated that the Union government’s enactment of Rules has led to “regulatory confusion and dual set of laws relating to online gaming”. It also stated that presently, there is no clarity on whether the Centre or State laws should be followed with respect to online gaming.

“The Impugned Rules traverse beyond the rule-making powers granted to it by the parent legislation, i.e., the IT Act and wrongly classifies online gaming platforms as ‘intermediaries’, going beyond the definition and scope of the parent legislation. Section 79(2)(c)r/w Section 89(2)(z) of the IT Act allows the central government to prescribe guidelines for due diligence requirements of intermediaries which do not initiate the transmission, select the receiver of the transmission or select or modify the information contained in the transmission”, it said.

“The Government cannot abdicate its role of overseeing and monitoring of the online gaming sector and outsource its responsibility to private bodies”, the plea stated.

Case Title: Social Organization for Creating Humanity (SOCH) v. Union of India