The Bill to outlaw online gambling was sent to Raj Bhavan for Governor RN Ravi’s approval a day after the Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously approved the bill for the second time in the legislative assembly.

Governor’s office received the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Bill, which is to be approved, since he returned the bill once to the government on March 8 under Article 200 of the Indian Constitution.

The bill was returned without the Governor giving his assent and claiming that the State Assembly has “no legislative competence” to pass such a bill. Further, cleared by Tamil Nadu Law minister, S Regupathy said that the state does in fact holds the authority to pass the bill.

He further said that the government does not understand on what grounds the governor made his claims. Regupathy said that the government will once again pass the bill and send it to the governor. He also said that since the governor returned the bill under Article 200 of the constitution, if the bill is re-enacted, he will have to give his assent.

A few days after that, the bill was discussed in the cabinet meeting, led by Chief Minister MK Stalin. A decision was made to re-enact the bill again and send it to the Governor.

The online gambling ban bill was made in order to stop the suicides in the states, which were reported to be more than 40. The people who took their lives were allegedly addicted to playing online rummy and lost all of their savings and borrowed money on the online game.

The Tamil Nadu Government is awaiting the Governor giving his assent for the re-enacted Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Bill.