The Supreme Court on Monday found itself surprised by a doubt raised by the Madras High Court about the December 2016 ban on sale of liquor within 500 metres along national and State highways.
The bone of contention is a July 11 order of the apex court which clarified that stretches of highways running through municipal areas were exempted from the ban.
But what has puzzled the Madras High Court is whether the exemption granted to municipal areas in the July 11 order pertained to only municipal areas in Chandigarh and none other.
The question had popped up in the HC because the petitioner in the case was an NGO based in Chandigarh called Arrive Safe Society.
The Madras HC asked the Tamil Nadu government to approach the Supreme Court and get a clarification.
“The High Court says municipal areas in the SC order means only areas in Punjab and not in Chennai. The Chief Justice Bench of the HC wants a clarification whether the exemption applies only to Chandigarh,” senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, for Tamil Nadu, addressed a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.
“Well, why should the HC think that? If our order applies for municipal areas in Chandigarh it will apply equally for municipal areas across the country,” Chief Justice Misra responded orally.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who had authored the highway ban verdict and is now part of the CJI’s Bench, observed that the exemption from ban applies to municipal areas across the country.
Justice Chandrachud added that the very purpose of the July 11 order was to prevent interim applications and orders like this one.
The point of focus of the present confusion was a particular paragraph in the July 11 order which said, “The purpose of the directions contained in the order dated December 15, 2016 is to deal with the sale of liquor along and in proximity of highways properly understood, which provide connectivity between cities, towns and villages. The order does not prohibit licensed establishments within municipal areas. This clarification shall govern other municipal areas as well. We have considered it appropriate to issue this clarification to set at rest any ambiguity and to obviate repeated recourse to IAs (interlocutory applications), before the court.”
“The phrase ‘other municipal areas’ in the order means municipal areas across the country. The interpretation is that,” Justice Chandrachud orally observed.
Chief Justice Misra reserved the case for orders.
The Madras High Court’s Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar had recently felt that the State government should approach the apex court through an appropriate application and obtain further clarification on the specific issue as to whether it was entitled to open State-run liquor shops on highways passing through city and town limits without declassifying them.
They had been hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate K. Balu.
The Supreme Court had clarified in the July 11 order that its nationwide ban on sale of liquor within a distance of 500 metres along national and State highways does not extend to municipal areas.
The court had clarified that the 500-metre ban does not prohibit licensed establishments within municipal areas.
The apex court explained that the December 15, 2016 ban on liquor sale only extends along and in proximity of highways which provide connectivity between cities, towns and villages.
This clarification from the apex court had effectively made infructuous any pending litigation in High Courts on declassification of State or national highways to district roads by State governments or local authorities. In short, stretches of highways running within city limits are now, by default, exempt from the liquor ban.
The court’s clarification had come as a huge relief for bar and hotel owners who were forced to shut down operations post the December 15 ban. Thousands were left jobless after these establishments were closed down.
On March 31, the court had dismissed their plea for modification of the ban and confirmed that the ban was not restricted to just liquor vends alongside the highways but also to other larger establishments, including pubs and hotels
In May, the Tamil Nadu Bars and Clubs Owners Association had described to the court the “crippling effect” of the ban in the State. Senior advocate Arvind Datar had conveyed how businesses literally crumbled and over two lakh employees were rendered jobless.
The apex court order was based on a special leave petition filed by Arrive Safe Society challenging a notification issued by the Chandigarh administration on March 16, 2017 – post the Supreme Court’s ban order on December 15, 2016 – declaring three stretches of State highways as “major district roads.” These roads are inter-sectoral and run within the city. The NGO had claimed the notification was issued to “circumvent” the ban.
