Dealing the Cards
A single-judge TR Ravi of the Kerala High Court had allowed a batch of petitions challenging the state government’s ban on online rummy. The Court has now quashed an amendment to a notification issued by the state government under Section 14A of the Kerala Gaming Act, 1960, which sought to ban online rummy in the state. It said that the notification was arbitrary and violative of the right to trade and commerce guaranteed under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution and the right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution. Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Joseph Markos and advocates Santhosh Mathew and Thomas Kuruvilla appearing on behalf of four online rummy companies challenged the ban and said that the government could not impose a ban on online rummy and clarified that it is a game of skill. It was also argued that the power under Section 14A of the Kerala Gaming Act, 1960, is limited to specifying what is a game of sufficient skill to warrant the exemption from g