New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the logic behind Kerala government’s new liquor policy for limiting bar licences to only 5-star hotels as part of a move to implement total prohibition in the State in 10 years and agreed to examine it.
A bench of justices A.R. Dave and U.U. Lalit agreed to grant an urgent hearing on a plea of aggrieved owners of hotels and posted the case for Thursday.
The court asked the government not to take any action against bars, although it did not pass any order to this effect.
“Please don’t take any action, we’re listing the case for hearing tomorrow (Thursday),” the court said, adding this was not a direction.
“What is the logic behind this? We don’t see any logic behind this,” the bench said.
A bunch of top lawyers including senior advocates Fali.S. Nariman, Ram Jethmalani, Rajeev Dhawan, C.S Sunderam and Arvind Dattar, appearing for various hotels, made a strong plea to the court to stay the policy, saying it is discriminatory in nature.
They submitted that deadline for their bar licenses will be revoked from midnight and urged the bench to take up the case for hearing urgently. They contended that their business would suffer badly and they have already made booking for tourists. The bench, after a brief hearing, posted the case for Thursday.
The Kerala government has decided to introduce prohibition in phases. The order cancelling bar licences takes effect on Thursday.
Under the new policy, the UDF Government had last month decided to shut around 700 bars attached to hotels below five-star categories.
(PTI contributed to this story)
