Allahabad High Court asks govt to respond to plea against online gambling sites

Prayagraj (UP): The Allahabad High Court has directed the central government as well as the state government to file their respective replies in response to a PIL seeking ban on online gambling sites.

The court further issued notices to officials of such websites, allegedly owned by Chinese nationals and involved in online gambling and duping money from innocent public.

Hearing a PIL filed by a social worker Shimla Shri Tripathi, a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice Rajendra Kumar has fixed September 15 as the next date of hearing in the case.

According to the petitioner, a large number of such websites are operating in India and offering gambling games like colour predicting game wherein the player has to place a certain amount of bet and guess the outcome of the colour before the declaration of the result by the website.

It was alleged in the petition that such websites first let players win easily, but when players in large numbers start putting larger bets, website owners start manipulating the results, thereby ultimately most of the players lose in the game while website owners illegally gain.

Appearing for the petitioner, his counsel Shashank Shri Tripathi argued that these websites also deduct huge amounts of money from winners in the name of tax on gambling claiming that the same will be paid to the government.

"Chinese citizens are owning such gambling websites. These websites are usually controlled by Chinese servers and are a planned scheme of fraud," he added.