Mangaluru: The Supreme Court didnt do a U turn, but it has taken into account the backlash on jobs, revenues, profits and just inconvienience that its earlier order on the closure of liquor vendors, bars, pubs and restaurants located within 500 mts of a National Highway including those within urban areas, created. Today in what is perhaps an acknowledgement of the pain that accured across the board, the Supreme Court, on Tuesday, observed that there was nothing wrong with denotifying highways inside cities.
Thousands of pubs, restaurants and bars across India have been forced to shut down following a Supreme Court order that liquor cannot be served by establishments that operate near national and state highways. This includes Bangalore’s MG and Brigade Road, where the night life thrives because of the high end Pubs and Bars there. The Court clarified its order saying that the purpose of the ban was to ensure that drivers on highways were not under the influence of alcohol. “There are no such issues when the roads are within the city,” the apex court said, while adding that denotifying such roads may have intelligible differentia. This in response to a plea filed by a Chandigarh based NGO – Arrive Safe Society. The NGO alleged that the Chandigarh administration had issued notification to denotify roads to bypass Supreme Court’s order. Indeed a proposal to that affect has already been submitted by many states to the Centre which is still sitting on it.
Arrive Safe had moved the SC after Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed its plea by saying that the administration had not violated any law by issuing the said notification. The apex court said that there was “nothing wrong in states denotifying highways within the city to avoid shutting down of liquor shops and restaurants and hotels serving liquor”. This they observed was because within city limits, the speed is much lesser. The court also pointed out that traffic within city limits was different and the purpose of the December 2016 order was to discourage liquor consumption by drivers traversing between two cities. This is just an observation, but its a considered observation, and one that will cheer the hearts of many – pub employees, pub owners and the tipplers on the highway within the city.
Many states have already denotified state higways which is in thier jurisdiction, but the national highways are outside thier purview, and the matter rests with the Centre.
While the objective of the order is noble, the impact on the economy and employment is huge and was felt post July 1st especially in Karnataka, when the licences were up for renewal
