Hyderabad: The Telangana state government on Monday contended before the Hyderabad High Court that it had the power to either regularise or prohibit the playing of rummy by treating it as an offence either offline or online.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice T. Rajani was dealing with a batch of petitions filed by Junglee Games India Pvt Ltd (Mumbai), Play Games 24x7 Pvt Ltd (Delhi) and Head Infotech (India) Pvt Ltd from the city. The companies had challenged an ordinance issued by the state government bringing online rummy under the Gaming Act by amending the provisions of Telangana Gaming Act, 1974.

The government had issued the Ordinance on June 17. Telangana state Advocate-General K. Ramakrishna Reddy, while arguing the case before the bench, submitted that keeping in view the larger public interest the government had decided to prohibit the game online as well, as several gullible were losing huge amounts of money.

He said that they have received complaints from several peopl