Virat Kohli, Sourav Ganguly issued notices for endorsing fantasy leagues apps

The Madurai bench of Madras High Court has issued notices to Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli and BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly, for their involvement in online sports app advertisements. 

A bench consisting of Justices N Kirubakaran and B Pugalendhi issued the notices to even actors Prakash Raj, Tammana, Rana and Sudip Khan as well as other such apps.

Advocate Mohammed Rizvi filed the case after some youth died by suicide in the state after losing money in such apps. 

“The apps are in the name of IPL teams such as Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Rajasthan Royals (RR) and some apps are also in the name of state’s names. Are these teams playing on behalf of the state,” asked the bench.

The bench accused the owners of these apps of using celebrities for the sake of earning crores. As for the mentioned names, they need to respond to the notice by November 19.

This is not the first time such a case has been filed against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper.

Back in August, a Chennai based lawyer had filed a similar case, seeking a ban on online gambling. He had asked for the arrest of celebrities endorsing it. The petition by the lawyer stated that addiction to gambling is dangerous and violates Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

This is right after Mobile Premier League (MPL) was picked as the apparel sponsor of the Indian cricket team for a period of three years. 

While Puma and Adidas had earlier picked up the bid papers for apparel sponsorship, they didn’t fill the bid as they felt that the deal needed to be reduced to one third from the original bid. Nike had a five-year deal during which they paid Rs 370 crore from 2016 to 2020 with a Rs 30 crore royalty.