INDIAN POKER ASSOCIATION Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The grievance of the present petitioners is that, despite the petitioner no 1 being a legally registered association and the petitioner no. 1 having rented a room for its members to play the game of poker in an hotel, being Hotel Tourist Inn, Sevoke Road, Siliguri, the police authorities are unnecessarily harassing the petitioners during such games on the false pretext that there is a legal bar to play poker.

(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioners relies on a judgment dated July 02, 2015, passed by a learned Single Judge of the principal Bench, wherein it was held, in consonance with the definition of "gaming or gambling" under Section 2(1)(b) of the West Bengal Gambling and Prize Competitions Act, 1957, that poker was not included either in gaming or gambling and, therefore, if anyone indulges in playing such game 2 without indulging in any other overt act, which could be treated as amounting to an offence, the same does not attract police interference.

(3.) In the said judgment, it was directed that playing of poker shall not result in unnecessary harassment of the players by the respondents therein.