The Tamil Nadu Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday discussed the Justice Chandru Committee report on the social ills caused by some online games, including online rummy in the State and the enactment of a law in this regard. The Cabinet has decided to place the committee report before the legislative assembly reported The Hindu Business Line.

The state has recently witnessed number of suicides related to online rummy and similar online games. In this case, the political parties including AIADMK, PMK, BJP have been continuously insisting that online gambling including rummy should be banned in the State.

On the basis of the observations made by the Courts on such prohibition laws and in view of the suggestions received from the public and experts, a draft legislation on banning such games has been formulated.

The government had constituted a committee headed by retired Madras High Court judge K Chandru in June to analyse the impact caused by online gaming/gambling sites. After the committee submitted a report on June 27 in favour of a ban. Subsequently, there were complaints from online gaming companies and also the public that their views were not taken into account. Subsequently, the Tamil Nadu government has received nearly 10,000 mails from public on the call to provide views on the proposed gaming ban law.

The panel’s report pointed to the impact of online games at the societal level and how these games propel adolescents to misuse their parents’ credit cards, etc.

Meanwhile, an inter-ministerial group of the central govt government tasked with drawing up a framework to regulate online gaming is likely to introduce rules governing the amount of money individual players spend in a game.