Chandy under pressure to take firm stand on bar issue

The fear of being branded as a votary of the liquor lobby has stopped the government from taking a firm decision.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is under pressure from his Cabinet colleagues to take a firm stand and put together a formula to settle the liquor bar licence issue now that Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president V.M. Sudheeran has decided to totally oppose the liquor bars.

According to government sources, the bar licence issue was nothing but an administrative matter that required the government to take decisions on a level-playing field.

However, the fear of being branded as a votary of the liquor lobby has stopped the Chief Minister and the government from taking a firm decision.

This point was mentioned by Mr. Chandy at one of the party-government coordination committee meetings.

The issue is such that no political leader, particularly belonging to the Congress, can afford to openly favour reopening of the liquor bars.

Case before HC

The sources pointed out that the government would find itself in a legal bind in the cases expected to come up before the High Court on July 3 and July 7 if it failed to take a decision.

The key problem lies in the previous Left Democratic Front government’s decision to amend Foreign Liquor (FL) rule 13(3) in two stages in 2007 and 2010 to include proviso 6 and 7 to regularise the 418 liquor bars irrespective of their standards. These establishments cannot be summarily denied renewal of licences, without being issued notices to improve standards as part of natural justice, the sources said.

Besides, the Supreme Court had merely directed that the applications of four star hotels for bar licence should not be rejected till the government took steps against 418 bars of poor standards as identified by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Panel suggestions

Moreover, the government has before it the recommendations of the Ramachandram Commission and the legal opinions of the Advocate General and the Law Secretary.

Leaders known to be close to Mr. Chandy would rather blame him for his hesitation because all that he had to do was to firmly get on with the decision making process on the strength of the various reports and other inputs he has.

The hesitation has now resulted in a situation where the government appears to be looking up to the High Court for a decision that would politically rescue it, they said.