High Court puts Punjab govt’s amendment on ‘liquor law’ on notice

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 27

Just about a week after Punjab amended the Punjab Excise Act, 1914; removing hotels, restaurants and clubs from the restrictions on serving of liquor within 500 metres of highways, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday put the state government on notice.

A Vacation Bench of Justice Anita Chaudhry and Justice Harminder Singh Madaan also issued a notice regarding stay on the petition filed by NGO Arrive Safe Society through its president Harman Singh Sidhu.

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The Bench further fixed July 24 as the next date of hearing for the state and other respondents to respond to the averments raised in the petition.

Sidhu contended that the Supreme Court had directed all states and union territories to forthwith cease and desist from granting licences for the sale of liquor along national and state highways.

It directed: “No shop for the sale of liquor shall be visible from a national or state highway; directly accessible from a national or state highway and situated within a distance of 500 metres of the outer edge of the national or state highway or of a service lane along the highway.”

But the state government, it seems, brought the impugned amendment dated June 22 to the Punjab Excise Act just to dodge the Supreme Court orders, he said.

He added that the state government, instead of recognising the Supreme Court’s concern in trying to remedy the mischief of drunken driving from the highway through its judgment, has shown a “narrow pedantic approach just for the sake of revenue”.

Sidhu argued liquor vends camouflaged as a restaurant, hotel or club would be found everywhere along the highways without any consideration for public health, morality, and peace, if the impugned amendment was allowed to operate.

It would resultantly lead to traffic chaos, health hazard and frequent road accidents, he claimed.

He added that the impugned amendment was “nothing short of a political response with an ulterior motive to dismantle the foundation of the verdict given by the Supreme Court.”

His counsel Ravi Kamal Gupta said the menace of drunken driving had been wrongly linked with unemployment.

On an earlier occasion, the owners of several bars and hotels in Chandigarh approached the High Court before linking their cause with unemployment. However, the petition was dismissed by the High Court.

Dubbing the term “notified place” as “vague”, he submitted the expression would definitely be misused to mean ‘tavern’ and the Supreme Court judgment in national interest would be diluted.