Law panel seeks views on legalising cricket betting

Hyderabad: It’s literally a million-dollar question: Should cricket betting  be legalised in India? Developments which have been taking place in the country since 2013 to the present day have  thrown up the question.  It has an impressive array of supporters.

Considered  by the business and commerce industry to be a valid one,  legal luminaries of this country have also been batting for legalisation of cricket betting through legislation for the past several years.

The Law Commission of India on May 30, 2017 released an appeal inviting suggestions and opinions from a cross-section of  people and stakeholders about  legalising betting.

The Commission in its appeal said that it has been mulling over this idea for quite some time now.  Discussions  were initiated with some  of  the stakeholders  and  the  Commission  is  working  towards  a  possible  report. Justice RM Lodha, former Chief Justice of India, also advocated legalising cricket betting in India. “Involvement of terrorist elements in betting is causing a serious threat to national security.”  

Mr Nilay Dutta, senior advocate and member of the Justice Mudgal Committee, which has been set up to probe the IPL match-fixing scam, added his opinion to the report of the committee by stating that, “Influx of Hawala money and involvement of terrorist elements in betting and fixing of sports is causing a serious threat to national security.”

“In view of the national interest involved, it would be necessary to explore the options available to Parliament and the Legislatures of various states to adopt the procedure stipulated in Article 252 of the Constitution of India.”

He added that betting and gambling being a state subject in the 7th schedule of the Constitution of India, there was no consolidated uniform law on this applicable to the entire country.

The Justice R M Lodha Committee, which was constituted by the Supreme Court to reform Indian Cricket, recommended that “to curb corruption in cricket, betting in cricket should be legalised. Except players and officials, all other people should be allowed to place their bets on registered websites.”

Justice Mudgal and Justice Lodha Committees have made a distinction between betting and fixing. The Supreme Court in BCCI versus State of Bihar case referred to the recommendations of the Justice Lodha Committee where it stated “the recommendation made by the Committee that betting should be legalised by law, involves the enactment of a law which is a matter that may be examined by the Law Commission...”

The Apex Court noted that the Committee has taken the view that betting by administrators, players, match officials, team officials, owners, etc., should continue to be an offence under the BCCI and IPL rules and regulations.

Based on these observations, the Law Commission has made an appeal inviting views and suggestions for legalising betting in India and to recommend the Union of India to bring out appropriate legislation which would be enforceable in the entire country.

Taming the vice
A paper published by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) for its conference titled ‘Regulating Sports Betting in India: A Vice To Be Tamed’ showed that an overwhelming 74 per cent of respondents believed that legalising sports betting would help curb match-fixing.

The Enforcement Directorate in May 2015, while busting an international cricket racket in Ahmedabad, claimed the arrested bookies had transferred about '300 crore through the hawala (illegal) channel to UK-based betting company Betfair to obtain a master password to place bets online and that was sold to many people in India. Experts are of the opinion that legalising betting could provide an opportunity to casual sports bettors. The legal platform makes it easy for monitoring and enforcing authorities.

The experts say that legalising betting would work only when it is supported by required enabling mechanisms like the sports fraud legislation, strong anti-corruption units in sports bodies, cooperation for states.