Panel believes linking transactions with Aadhaar and making them cashless could help make betting and gambling transparent.
New Delhi: The Law Commission of India has recommended an Aadhaar-based framework to legalise gambling and betting in India, saying a blanket ban was not feasible.
However, the commission recommended that the activities remain criminalised for the poor who benefit from government subsidies. This, they said, was to ensure “the money provided by the government for sustenance… is not misused” and “vulnerable people are protected from the vice of gambling and betting”.
The recommendation was made in the panel’s 276th report, submitted to the government Thursday.
According to the commission’s suggestions, linking transactions with Aadhaar and making them cashless could help make betting and gambling transparent.
The commission has also suggested categorising gambling as ‘proper’ and ‘small’.
“‘Proper gambling’ would be characterised by higher stakes. Accordingly, only individuals belonging to the higher income group shall be permitted to indulge in this form of gambling. On the other hand, individuals belonging to the lower income groups will have to confine themselves to ‘small gambling’,” the report said.
An epic example
The report, titled ‘Legal Framework: Gambling and Sports Betting including in Cricket in India’, also cities the Mahabharata to argue that Indians are “most likely to choose morality over revenue”.
However, since “regulated gambling would ensure detection of fraud and money laundering”, the report suggested a three-pronged regulation strategy for the government.
In 2016, the Supreme Court had asked the Law Commission to study if betting could be legalised in India following the recommendations of the Justice Lodha committee, which was formed in the wake of the 2013 IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal.
Headed by former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha, the panel, set up by the apex court to reform cricket administration in India, had suggested legalising betting to improve the game. Except for the suggestion to regulate betting in cricket, the apex court accepted all other recommendations of the three-member panel.
The Law Commission, headed by former apex court judge Balbir Singh Chauhan, said in a letter to the union law minister that the views of various stakeholders had been analysed in preparing the 145-page report.
However, one member of the commission, S. Sivakumar, a professor at Indian Law Institute, Delhi, disagreed with the commission’s view. “With widespread poverty prevalent in India, time is not ripe to legalise betting. The Lodha panel has not taken socio-economic factors into consideration,” he said.