Where should booze shops be located? SC clears ambiguity

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra faced a fresh barrage of petitions pointing out the conflict between SC’s orders, one mandating the municipal authorities to not allow liquor shops to operate within 500 metres of educational institutions, temples and mosques and another allowing them beyond 150 metres.

Arguing for licensed liquor shop owners, senior advocate P B Suresh and advocate Vipin Nair, with the support lent by attorney general R Venkataramani, argued that in a small Union Territory like Puducherry, the distance of 500 metres would result in no liquor shop in the entire UT. Moreover, they argued that SC in its earlier orders had allowed the municipal authorities to fix the distance for location of the liquor shops from these places as per the local body rules and regulations.

The CJI-led bench in its January 29 order said that the SC in its March 20, 2023, judgment had concluded that no liquor shop could be situated within 500 metres of the outer edge of a national or state highway or of a service lane along the highway. In later orders, this distance was reduced to 220 metres, if the population of the town was less than 20,000.

In Mar 2023, it had ordered relocation of liquor shops within 150 metres from a temple, mosque and educational institution in the teeth of directions of the SC in K Balu case in 2016.

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