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TMI Blog2017 (4) TMI 71X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... na Raja, Adv. Mr.Meka Venkata Rama Krishna, Adv. Mr.Vamshi Rao, Adv. Mr. Rayala Subba Rao, Adv. Mr.Subodh Kr.Pathak, Adv. Mr.Abhijeet Chatterjee, Adv. Ms.Shashi Ranjan, Adv. Mr.Adil Alvi, Adv. Ms.Devahuti Tamuli, Adv. Ms. Barnati Basak, Adv. Mr.Avijit Patnaik, Adv. Mr.Srisatya Mohanty, Adv Mr. P.V. Dinesh, Adv. Ms. Sindhu T.P., Adv Mr. Bineesh K, Adv. Mr. Rajendra Beniwal, Adv. Mr. Arushi Singh, Adv. Mr.Raghavendra S.Srivatsa, Adv. Mr.Venkita Subramoniam, Adv. Mr.Rahat Bansal, Adv. Mr.G.Prakash, Adv. Mr.Jishnu ML, Adv. Mrs. Priyanka Prakash, Adv. Mrs. Beena Prakash, Adv. Mr. Manu Srinath, Adv. Mr.Ram Sankar, Adv. Mr.P.Jegan, Adv. Mr. Arun Singh, Adv. Mr. Surya Narayana Patro, Adv. Mr. Y. Lokesh, Adv. for Mr. R.V. Kameshwaran, AOR Mr. Amol N. Suryawanshi, Adv. Mr. Prashant Kenjale, Adv. Mr.Abhijit Chattopadhyay, Adv. Mr.Sandeep Lamsa, Adv. Mr. Sanjay Kumar Lal Das, Adv. Ms. Priyanka Das, Adv. Ms.Nandini Sen, Adv. Mr.Suman Sengupta, Adv Mr.Venkateshwar Rao Anumulu, Adv. Mr.Prabhakar Parnam, Adv. Mr.Arun Singh, Adv. Mr.R.V.Kameshwaran, Adv. Mr. Ajit Kr. Sinha, Sr. Adv. Mr.A.K.Panda, Sr.Adv. Ms.Binu Tamta, Adv. Mr.S.S.Rawat, Adv. Mr.G.S.Makker, Adv. Ms. Somya Rathore, Adv. Mr. Ansh Sin ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hi, Adv. Mr. Yogesh Jagia, Adv. Mr. Amit Sood, Adv. Mr. Gopal Sankarnarayan, Adv. Mr. Zeeshan Diwan, Adv. Mr. Aman Guta, AOR Mr. Guntur Prabhakar, Adv. Ms. Prerna Singh, Adv. Ms. Suvira Lal, Adv. for Mr. M.C. Dhingra, AOR Mr. Parveen Kumar Aggarwal, Adv. Mr. Sanjay Jain, Adv. ORDER Dr D Y CHANDRACHUD, J 1. On 15 December, 2016, this Court delivered judgment in a batch of Civil Appeals originating from the State of Tamil Nadu and the States of Punjab and Haryana. The decision of this Court is reported as 'State of Tamil Nadu represented by its Secretary, Home, Prohibition and Excise Department Vs. K.Balu (2017) 2 SCC 281 . The issue which the Court addressed was the presence of liquor vends on national and state highways across the country. Official figures of road accidents, with their attendant fatalities and injuries provided the backdrop for the intervention of this Court. This Court adverted to the consistent policy of the Union Government to curb drunken driving and, as an incident of the policy, to remove liquor vends on national highways. The judgment of this Court concludes that there is no justification to allow liquor vends on state highways (while prohibiting them on ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... livered by this Court and the significant element of public interest that is involved in dealing with road accidents caused due to drunken driving on the highways of the nation, we have heard arguments extensively on 29 and 30 March, 2017 so that the matter can be addressed before the deadline of 1 April 2017. Some States and private parties who were not before the Court in the course of the original proceedings urged that their submissions in regard to the directions issued by this Court should be taken into account. Hence, we were of the view that in the interest of fairness it would be appropriate to enable a dispassionate consideration of their perspectives in order to determine whether any modification is required and if so, the nature of the modification that may be warranted in the final judgment of this Court. We have, therefore, not been trammelled by the technicality of whether these 'Interlocutory Applications' would be maintainable in a proceeding which has been disposed of. Having regard to the importance of the issues which have been addressed in the judgment and order, we were of the considered view that this Court should have the benefit of the assistance rendered b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ructions of aforesaid intent have been issued in respect to disposal of retail sale shops of country/foreign liquor, Arrangements year 2017-18, which have been published in Madhya Pradesh Gazette (Extra Ordinary) No.27 dated 18 January 2017". 7. On behalf of the Delhi Tourism Development Corporation it has been stated that out of the 547 vends for liquor, 14 are in breach of the 500 metre norm. A Committee was constituted for the shifting of these liquor vends, and the process has begun. An extension of six months has been sought. 8. During the course of the hearing, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the State of Andhra Pradesh informed the Court that the State Government has accepted the judgment and is accordingly withdrawing the Interlocutory Application filed by it. I.A.D.No. 11840 is accordingly dismissed as withdrawn. 9. The State of Telangana has similarly informed the Court that under its excise policy, the excise year is to end on 30 September. The limited prayer before the Court is an extension of time for compliance so as to facilitate the expiry of the current licences at the end of the excise year on 30 September 2017. 10. Besides the States listed earlier, th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tional and is in the nature of judicial policy making. 13. The Union of India is represented in these proceedings (as in the proceedings which led to the judgment dated 15 December 2016) by Shri Panda. Shri Panda has unequivocally asserted that the Union government stands by the judgment rendered by this Court on 15 December 2016. Shi Panda has submitted that the judgment is supported by the consistent policy and advisories of the Union government to the states to curb drunken driving and to prohibit the sale of liquor along national highways. 14. In dealing with these submissions, we must at the outset notice that this Court while exercising its jurisdiction has neither formulated policy nor (as we shall indicate) has it assumed a legislative function. The basis and foundation of the judgment delivered on 15 December 2016 is (i) the policy of the Union Government, formulated by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH); (ii) the decision of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), which is an apex body for road safety established under Section 215 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988; (iii) advisories issued by the Union Government to the states over a period of one d ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ame line of argument, which is based on the state excise rules is lacking in substance. The state excise rules contain enabling provisions. They provide for a discretion for the grant of liquor licences. No individual has a vested right to obtain a licence. There is no fundamental right to carry on business in liquor since as a matter of constitutional doctrine, Article 19(1)(g) does not extend to trade in liquor which is consistently regarded as res extra commercium. Where an excise rule which has been formulated by a state government provides for the maintenance of a specified distance from an institution or amenity, what this postulates is that no licence can be granted at all by the State Government within that distance. The state has a discretion on whether a licence should be granted under its enabling powers. No individual can assert a right to the grant of a licence : trading in liquor is a privilege conferred by the state. The directions which have been issued by this Court do not breach any norm in the nature of a prohibition nor do they operate to lift a prohibition imposed by law. The effect and purport of the directions is that in the interest of public safety and publ ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... that where more than one highway intersects a municipal area the obligation to observe a distance of 500 metres would operate to cause serious prejudice. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the associations representing the liquor trade or, as the case may be, individual licencees urged that a graduated solution which exempts those segments of the state highways which traverse through villages, cities and towns should be adopted. Shri Kapil Sibal, Shri Harish Salve, Dr A M Singhvi, Shri Jayant Bhushan, learned senior counsel, as well as other learned counsel suggested the same approach. As and by way of an example, Shri Devdatt Kamat, learned counsel appearing for the State of Karnataka informed the Court that under the state excise rules, an exemption is provided from the application of a prescribed distance of 220 metres in the case of a municipality with a population of less than 20,000 people. 18. To further buttress the submission, it was urged that the direction which has been issued by the Court will result in a loss of revenue to the States. The direction, it was submitted, would result in individual hardship, in cases where the shifting of a liquor shop may not be ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... life as an over-arching constitutional value. The preservation of public health and of public safety is an instrument of enhancing the right to life as a constitutionally protected value. Where a balance has to be drawn between protection of public health and safety and the need to protect road users from the menace of drunken driving (on the one hand) and the trade in liquor (on the other hand) the interests of the latter must be subordinate to the former. 21. Another submission which has been urged on behalf of the applicants is that the expert committee appointed by this Court (chaired by Justice S Radhakrishnan, a former Judge of this Court) has recommended a distance of 100 metres with reference to highways. In view of this recommendation it has been submitted that this Court ought not to have fixed the minimum distance at 500 metres. We find no merit in the submission. The recommendation of the Committee cannot be placed on a higher footing than what it purports to be namely, a recommendation. The opinion of the Expert Committee was duly cited before this Court during the course of the proceedings leading upto the judgment dated 15 December 2016. We are of the view that a di ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... isting licences which have been renewed prior to the date of the order shall continue only until the term of the licence expires but not later than 1 April 2017. This was on the basis that the excise year ends on 31 March with the end of the financial year. This Court has been apprised during the course of hearing, that different states have different periods of operation for their excise years. Shri P.P.Rao, learned senior counsel, urged that the implementation of the directions should be carried out so as to inflict 'minimum pain' on the trade, which is not illegal. For instance, our attention has been drawn to the fact that the excise year in Telangana commences on 1 October and ends on 30 September of the following year. In the State of Andhra Pradesh, the excise year is stated to end on 30 June. Licencees to whom licences have been allotted prior to the date of the judgment would have made their investments. The cut-off date of 1 April 2017 was intended to protect such individuals. However, some modification is warranted due to the prevalence of varying excise years. In our view, the ends of justice would be met by issuing the following direction in continuation of direction ( ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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