What is the logic behind permitting five-star hotels to run their bars while forcing all other hotels to close their bars in Kerala, where the Congress-led UDF Government has announced a new liquor policy envisaging “total liquor ban” in ten yearsIJ
Suspicion is strengthening that this could be part of a ploy to leave enough legal room for the affected bar owners to question the policy in the court on the basis of an argument about discrimination. The Supreme Court has already questioned this discrimination and it may resurface when the case comes up in the Kerala High Court on Wednesday or Thursday.
The State Government’s explanation for allowing the 20 five-star hotels to run their bars while ordering closure of bars in all the other 710 hotels is that matters related to five-star category hotels come under the purview of the Tourism Ministry of the Union Government.
But the fact is that the Hotel and Restaurant Approval and Classification Committee (HRACC) of the Union Ministry of Tourism does not make it mandatory, as per the revised guidelines of September, 2013, for five-star hotels to have bars. legal experts argue that the State Government is unlikely to be ignorant about this guideline of the Centre.
The HRACC’s revised guidelines for hotel classification issued on September 4, 2013 clearly states: “Wherever bar licence is prohibited for a hotel as per local law, then the bar will not be mandatory and wherever bar is allowed as per local laws, the hotel will have to obtain bar licence first and then apply for classification to the Ministry of Tourism.”
“If this is the case, why does the State Government want to retain bars at five-star hotels while all other hotels are forced to close their booze roomsIJ Or is the Government trying to tell us that it does not know about the revised Central guidelinesIJ” asks a senior lawyer of the Kerala High Court.
On Tuesday, the Government submitted in the High Court an affidavit in response to a batch of petitions filed by bar owners questioning the order for the closure of their bars. Even this document has not attempted to clear this disparity. Instead it argues that five-star bars are being allowed to keep a balance between Prohibition and Tourism business.
Unable to provide a plausible explanation for the disparity, State Excise Minister K Babu said on Tuesday that there was no point in doing a post-mortem on the liquor policy. “This is our policy. Bars were mandatory for five-star hotels when we formulated it. The Centre might have changed the guidelines since then but we are not going to change our policy,” he said.
According to legal experts, the Government can argue that liquor trade is not a fundamental right and that it has the authority to devise its liquor policy as per its choice but that would not be sufficient to explain the factor of discrimination. They say that it is exactly this point the apex court had pointed out to the Government on September 11.
“In short, the Government could be leaving enough room for the 710 hotel owners to question the order to close down their bars. However, it is yet to be seen whether the High Court will consider this issue seriously, whether the Government will order closure of the five-star bars also or weather all the other bars will eventually be allowed to function,” said the High Court lawyer.
Critics of the liquor policy point out that the outcome of the case is not going to affect the Government in a big way. If it loses, it can claim that the court has thrown a spanner in its liquor ban wheel though it wanted the ban to be wholesome and if it wins it can claim complete victory though the pro-bar lobby in the Government may not be all that happy, they say.
As per the new policy, all bars in the State except those in five-star hotels will be closed before October 2. Ten percent of the total 384 retail liquor outlets run by two state-owned agencies will be closed every year leading to “total” liquor ban by October 2, 2023, according to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s roadmap to eradication of ‘liquor menace’ from Kerala society.