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The Supreme Court on Thursday (December 11, 2025) witnessed a brief debate on whether the Parliament was actually “competent" to enact the new online gaming law, which banned real money games, related banking services and advertisements.
The short hearing witnessed an exchange among the Chief Justice, senior lawyers appearing for online gaming platforms and the Centre on the point if online gaming could be classified as a ‘betting and gambling’ activity.
If so, ‘betting and gambling’ were subjects enumerated under Entry 34 of the State List in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. Only the States had jurisdiction to make laws to govern these activities.
The Chief Justice indicated that the petitions would come up before a three-judge Bench in January 2026 for a threadbare hearing on whether the “Parliament had acted beyond its competence” to enact the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025.
Senior advocates C.A. Sundaram, Arvind Datar and advocate Rohini Musa, representing the online gaming entities, said a two-judge Bench of the apex court headed by Justice J.B. Pardiwala was also hearing petitions challenging the 2025 Act and laws enacted by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and other States. The competence of the Parliament to enact the 2025 Act had also come up before Justice Pardiwala’s Bench, they briefed the CJI.
Mr. Sundaram and Mr. Datar urged the court to hear the case early. They have been seeking the interim relief of a stay of the implementation of the Act.
“People have lost jobs. There is complete uncertainty,” they pleaded.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, asked the court to not limit the application of its mind to merely a question of competence, but focus on the legislative intention behind the 2025 Act.
The Centre has argued that online real money gaming platforms had no right to trade or profession at the cost of human lives, as money sourced through these activities were either being laundered or used as funding for terror besides being a source of increasing addiction and fatalities among young users.
The government justified the introduction of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act to curb the rapid spread of online money games, creating “serious risks for individuals, families and the nation”. It noted that an estimated 45 crore people were negatively affected by online money games and faced a loss of more than ₹2,000 crore.
“There can be no right to profession or trade at the cost of human lives, which online money gaming is known to take, month after month, across the country,” the Centre has submitted.
The government said “systemic legal violations” linked to online money gaming (OMG) platforms include large-scale tax evasion, money laundering, cross border illicit fund flows and “vulnerabilities” relating to potential terror financing and other economic offences. Government data had showed a sharp increase in outward remittances, especially in 2023-2024, where outflows exceeded ₹5,700 crore.
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