chennai tamil nadu finance minister palanivel thiaga rajan on thursday criticised governor r n ravi for having held a meeting with the representatives of online gaming companies against the backdrop of pendency of governments bill to prohibit online gambling and regulate online games the egaming federation had termed the bill unconstitutional thiaga rajan tweeted no one told me a special bench adjudicate prior to notification of a law based on a bill passed by the assembly had been opened at guindy reminiscent of the we are asking questions now because we may have to hear a plea if a law is passed and it is challenged logic no thiaga rajan is the first from the state government to react ever since the news broke out on wednesday about the meeting of members of the egaming federation on december 5 governor ravi met state law minister s regupathy on december 1 10 days after he sought an appointment while no official statement was released by the governor until thursday raj bhavan sources said the meeting with the industry representatives was part of the ongoing process looking at various aspects of the bill and to ensure that it conformed to the procedures laid down by the laws and constitution the governor shows utmost care and concern for the interest of the state it may be noted that on earlier occasions the bills which were brought by the previous regime and similar bills in other states too have been quashed or challenged by the online games companies and they have won cases the sources said top executives of the companies called on the governor for a brief session a representation was handed over to the governor expressing the concerns of the companies pointing out that the supreme court and high courts had clearly identified games like rummy and poker as games of skill while the state governments bill categorised them as games of chance and sought to ban them the bill is unconstitutional you cannot enforce a ban on online rummy and poker it can be regulated egaming federation chief executive officer sameer barde told toi according to the egf the random number generators rngs were one of the most developed internationally accepted regulatory practices and technical standards adopted by the operators voluntarily in the country