A former judge of the Madras High Court K. Chandru has penned a handbook in Tamil to guide those interested in eradicating liquor shops in their localities through legal means. The book, written in a question-answer format, has been published by Vizhi, a forum established with the aim of enforcing prohibition in the State.
According to Gnani Sankaran, a popular Tamil writer and coordinator of Vizhi, the need for educating the masses about legal avenues available to eradicate liquor shops had arisen in view of a recent survey conducted by the Madras Medical College.
The survey results showed that around 11 per cent of children between the age of 14 and 16 had taken to liquor consumption.
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Hence, the forum chose Mr. Chandru who had ordered closure of many liquor shops during his tenure as a judge between July 2006 and March 2013.
In one of his judgments, he held that the interest of children was more important than the revenue of Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC), a State Government enterprise involved in sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor in the State.
In the handbook, the former judge states that though people hold protests to shift liquor shops from their residential localities, such agitations do not go beyond finding some space and time in the media. And only a handful of such shops get shifted through court orders because many do not approach the courts fearing expenditure.
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Hence, the book provides solutions to all such problems by explaining in detail issues relating to the role of TASMAC, how it was established by a quixotic interpretation of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act 1937, legal remedies available to the people having to deal with liquor shops, whom to approach, how to obtain funding for filing cases in courts and much more.