Supreme Court upholds Kerala’s selective alcohol restrictions
Civil
The Supreme Court batted away claims of discrimination between variously ‘starred’ hotels to dismiss a challenge against the Kerala government’s moves to restrict sale and consumption of alcohol. It agreed that Kerala’s three-pronged approach to controlling liquor manufacture, wholesale and retail supply, and now consumption, was predicated on the disproportionately high consumption of alcohol in the state. Further, nexus between the State’s restrictions on sale of alcohol at hotels, save five star hotels, was commensurate with its attempts to reduce alcohol consumption: prices of alcohol in five star hotels were “usually prohibitively high”, so much so, guests of five star hotels, unlike at other establishments, did not visit them for the sole purpose of consuming alcohol. Res extra commercium, it opined, was the position of alcohol for which it faced more stringent restrictions than other trades.
2.76 per cent of the nation’s population (based on Census 2011) but nearly 14 per cent of its alcohol consumption, the Supreme Court has cause to lament the ‘social malaise’ of alcohol addiction in Kerala. The State has long played bugbear to the alcohol-enthusiast, with sale of alcohol in government hands since 1984, no licenses for private manufacture of alcohol having been granted since 1999 and its endeavours since 2014 to curtail alcohol consumption. At the forefront have been the Abkari Act and Kerala Foreign Liquor Rules which the State relies on to implement its policies.
Relevant : State of Kerala and Anr. vs. B. Six Holiday Resorts (P) Ltd. and etc. MANU/SC/0173/2010
State of Kerala and Ors. vs. B. Surendra Das Etc. MANU/SC/0229/2014
Article 19 Constitution of India Act
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