The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the Kerala government’s decision to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol of in a phased manner.
The court rejected a petition by bar owners to overturn the ban, which restricts liquor sales and consumption to bars in five-star hotels.
The southern state wants to shut bars in a move towards total prohibition within 10 years.
The verdict is seen as a great relief for Chief Minister Oommen Chandy ahead of summer elections as many felt his “flawed liquor policy” would not stand judicial scrutiny.
The government had already closed some 60 state-run retail shops as part of its policy of phasing them out in ten years at the rate of 10% every year.
The court upheld the state’s argument that liquor traders cannot challenge even “unreasonable restrictions”. The bar owners argued that the policy was discriminatory.
Setting a judicial precedent for prohibition in other states as well, the court agreed with the Kerala government that the ban had nothing to do with the cleanliness of bars but the health of a nation and that liquor traders have no business to intervene in its policy.
Kerala has India’s highest per capita alcohol consumption at more than eight litres per person yearly. The national annual average for alcohol consumption is estimated to be about 5.7 litres per person.
The court asked the state to ensure that five-star hotels did not slash prices. It questioned the rationale behind issuing licences to sell light alcoholic beverages while the state accounts for 14% of India’s liquor sales.
Senior lawyer and Congress leader Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state, argued that a policy is based on the possible situation, and one cannot foresee all possible situations. It is the government’s right to make the state liquor-free, he said.
“People don’t come to my state only to drink alcohol. It is otherwise also a lovely place,” he argued, countering the bar owners who said tourism was bearing the brunt.
“The ground reality is different... Young but wizened faces, class notes in hand, line up outside bars that function like arrack shops. These shops are opened at 8.30am to cater to these children. We have no ulterior motive.”
Interestingly, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi represented some of the bar owners who moved the court against the policy, which was upheld by the Kerala High Court in March.
The Kerala government was quick to hail the verdict.
“We are happy that the Supreme Court has upheld our decision. From now on, we will be going ahead very strongly with our anti-liquor campaign programmes as we want this habit to be removed from our society,” Excise Minister K Babu told reporters in Thiruvanathapuram, just after the verdict.
Only 27 five-star hotels’ bars in Kerala will be able to serve liquor.
Bar owner Elegant Binoy told reporters: “...the liquor policy of the state is an annual exercise and there are just three more months for this policy. From April 1, 2016, there has to be a new policy, so we will wait and see, and before that we also will sit down and discuss what other legal recourse is there before us.”
In August 2014, the Chandy government announced that it was deciding to go in for total prohibition in 10 years and had issued a notice for closure to all 710 bars.
Liquor, however, will be available through 305 retail liquor shops owned by the Kerala government. And, here too, 10% of these shops would be closed down every October, the new policy statement said. By now, 78 shops have already downed their shutters.