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New Delhi,In a reprieve to bar owners in Kerala, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the state government to maintain status quo and not implement its new liquor policy till September 30.
The SC also asked the Kerala HC to decide expeditiously pleas challenging the state government’s new liquor policy, which are listed for hearing on September 18..
The Kerala government had passed an order banning the sale of liquor at bars and hotels below the five-star category and the ban order was to come into force on September 11.
Under the new policy, the Congress-led UDF government had last month decided to shut around 700 bars attached to hotels below five-star categories. “What is the logic behind this? We don’t see any logic,” the bench said.
Owners of hotels affected by the Kerala government’s order banning sale of liquor at bars and hotels below five-star category told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the move was discriminatory and would hit their business as their tourist bookings were already done.
Top lawyers appearing for various hotels, including senior advocates Fali S Nariman, Ram Jethmalani, Rajeev Dhawan, C S Sunderam and Arvind Dattar, made a strong plea to the court to stay the policy. They submitted that their bar licences would be revoked from midnight and urged the bench to take up the case for hearing urgently. They contended that their business would suffer as they had already accepted bookings from tourists. Senior counsel Dhawan argued that their licences should survive till the March 31, 2015 expiry date. He said the bar licence policy was violative of Article 14 as it differentiated between the five-star hotels and others. Dhawan said the excise commissioner’s order cancelling the licences was “arbitrary”.
Senior counsel C S Sunderam said,”It is going on for 12 years. It has large-scale ramifications. It will cause irreparable hardships to the employees working in hotels and bars. Lakhs of people will be affected.”
Opposing the pleas, Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Kerala government, told the court there was no question of suspending the excise commissioner’s August 28 notice cancelling the licences.
