Why not issue permits to consumers of liquor, asks HC

Says effective mechanism should be put in place to prevent the sale of liquor to those below 18 years

A view of a Tasmac shop in Perungudi.

The Madras High Court on Wednesday asked why the erstwhile practice of issuing permits to all those who consume liquor should not be reintroduced to prevent sale of liquor to minors. The court was of the view that flashing the permit could be made mandatory to purchase liquor.

A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad broached the subject with Advocate General Vijay Narayan during the hearing of a series of public interest litigation petitions related to liquor shops. The judges were concerned over a considerable number of juveniles addicted to liquor.

The senior judge in the Bench said that being the chairman of the Juvenile Justice Committee of the court, he had come across several minors addicted to liquor as well as drugs. Therefore, he said, some effective mechanism should be put in place to prevent the sale of liquor to those below 18 years.

During the course of hearing, advocate Naveen Kumar Murthi said the permit system might also lead to the permit holders hoarding liquor and then selling it illegally to others. However, the judges said the permits could actually be used to keep a check over the quantity of liquor purchased by every individual.

Subsequently, the A-G told the court that the number of liquor shops in the State had been brought down from 7,896 in March 2004 to 5,198 as on February 4, 2019. The working hours of the shops too had been gradually reduced from 16 hours a day in 2004 to 11 hours a day since May 2016, he said.

In so far as a query raised by the court last week with regard to number of liquor shops established on agricultural lands, the A-G said, out of 2,728 liquor shops in village panchayats, 1,738 were situated in dry lands, 355 in wet lands and 635 were on other lands which fell under classifications such as

natham poromboke.

Stating that most of the lands in village panchayats were classified as agricultural lands even if they were not being used for farming, he sought time to instruct district managers of Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) through which the State operates liquor shops to take photographs of all 2,728 shops and produce them in court.

Later, opposing one of the PIL petitions which had sought a direction to the government to wind up Tasmac, Mr. Narayan said the petition was not maintainable at all since it had sought a direction to close down an arm of the government and not to introduce total prohibition in the State which appeared to be the aim of the petitioner.

He said sale of liquor was a policy decision of the State government and it was regulated under the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act of 1937 which had not been challenged by the petitioner.