By Aditya Kalra and Arpan Chaturvedi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian gaming company A23 has challenged the government’s ban on online money-based games, a legal filing shows, in the first case against a law that led to the sudden shutdown of popular contests and has thrown the industry’s future into doubt.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government issued a law last week to ban such games, which the industry says rely on skill and are therefore not gambling. Gambling was already highly restricted in India.

The legislation is a setback for an industry backed by venture capital firms such as Tiger Global and Peak XV Partners, and that was on track to be worth $3.6 billion in India by 2029, according to industry estimates.

In a court filing at the High Court of Karnataka in southwestern India,

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