Supreme Court Transfers To Itself PILs In HCs To Ban Opinion Trading Platforms

The Supreme Court today (July 18) transferred four public interest litigation petitions to itself seeking a ban on opinion trading platforms for promoting illegal activity of betting and gambling. These petitions are transferred from the High Court of Bombay, the High Court of Chhattisgarh and the High Court of Gujarat.

Before a bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, Senior Advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Probo Media, requested the clubbing of the matters pending in the Chhattisgarh High Court and the Gujarat High Court and that it be transferred to the Bombay High Court. He added that the petitoner is already a party to the matters pending before the Bombay High Court.

Whereas, Senior Advocate Gaurav Aggarwal, appearing for social activist Sumit Kapurbhai, opposed the transfer of the different PILs. He stated that the matter before the Chhattisgarh High Court also raises issues in regards to the legislation on gambling. He added that just because the petitioner is a party to all these PILs, that itself should not be a ground to club all petitions.

Inclined to hear the matter, Justice Pardiwala said that the Supreme Court will hear the matter. However, Dr Singhvi tried to explain that these are a different batch of petitions and not related to the casinos and gambling matter the Court is hearing currently.

Nevertheless, the Court passed a common order directing for the transfer of all PILs: "The petitioner, a private limited company, has preferred this transfer petition with the following prayers. Heard Dr Singhvi, learned counsel for petitioner, and Mr Gaurav Aggarwal, appearing for the first Respondent who instituted a PIL before the Chhattisgarh High Court. Dr Singhvi would submit that there are two petitions in the nature of public interest litigation pending before the Bombay High Court, and the third PIL petition is pending before the High Court of Gujarat and the fourth is pending before the High Court of Chhattisgarh.

He would make a fervent appeal that led all the writ petitions PIL be transferred to the Bombay High Court that all can be heard together. We are of the view that all these four PILs should be heard by this Court. In such circumstances, we direct the High Court of Bombay, High Court of Gujarat, and High Court of Chhattisgarh to transfer all the writ petitions with entire record to this Court at the earliest. Once these four PILs are transferred to this Court, Registry shall notify before this Court as directed by hon'ble Chief Justice of India."

It may be noted that another writ petition filed by Respondent before the Gujarat High Court seeking ban on certain mobile game platforms on the ground that the games in question constitute games of chance and not games of skill was dismissed on the grounds that a similar PIL is pending before the Bombay High Court. The High Court directed him to file an intervention. However, the Respondent filed a special leave petition against Gujarat High Court's dismissal in which a bench comprising Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan issued notice in February 21.

Case Details: PROBO MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD. Vs SUMIT KAPURBHAI PRAJAPATI|T.P.(C) No. 1527-1529/2025