Madurai bench of Madras High Court has issued notices to Tamannaah Bhatia, Rana Daggubati, Prakash Raj, Sudip Khan, Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly for promoting and endorsing fantasy league apps. Virat and Tamannaah are the brand ambassodors for Mobile Premier League while Ganguly and MS Dhoni, and former Aussie all-rounder Shane Watson also featured as brand ambassadors for fantasy leagues like Dream 11, MPL and My11Circle app.
Justices N Kirubakaran and B Pugalendhi issued the notices to the actors and the cricketers for their involvement in online sports app advertisements, as well as other such apps. Reportedly, the bench accused the owners of these apps of using celebrities for the sake of earning crores and asked the above-mentioned celebs to respond the court’s notice by November 19.
The bench asked, “The apps are in the name of IPL teams such as Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, and some apps are also in the name of state’s names. Are these teams playing on behalf of the state?” The case was filed by advocate Mohammed Rizvi. He filed the case after some youth died by suicide in the state after losing money by playing matches in such online gambling apps during the on-going Indian Premier League 2020. The petition by the lawyer stated that addiction to gambling is more dangerous to society and violates Article 21 of the Constitution of India, as it infringes the right to life.
This is right after Mobile Premier League (MPL) was picked up as the apparel sponsor of the Indian cricket team for a period of three years. Earlier in August 2020, a petition to arrest Virat was lodged for promoting online gambling after several suicides among the youth emerged in Tamil Nadu. The case was filed at Madras High Court.
(Source: News18)
