The officials of the Excise Department have reduced the number of dry days from 21 days in calendar year 2021 to 3 days in 2022 without consent of the Council of Ministers and Lieutenant Governor, who is the competent authority. The Department of Vigilance (DoV) in its inquiry report said the proposal for reduction of dry days was mooted by the then Excise Commissioner in 2015 but rejected by the Deputy Chief Minister without any assessment. This time the same proposal was accepted by him without taking approval from the Council of Ministers on January 6, 2021.
“… the proposal for reducing the number of dry days was rejected by the Dy CM on 11.12.2015 without assigning any reason then however, this time the same was approved by him on 06.01.2021, without even taking approval of the Council of Ministers. This was done when at one hand officials of Excise Department extended compensation to the licensees in the name of closure of vends due to omicron related issues, however, the same set of officials did not undertake any effort to levy additional licence fee for least compensate the closure of vends reduction in sale of liquor) from such increased number of sale days due to substantial reduction in number of dry days,” the report said.
The report said the department has reduced number of dry days from 21 days in calendar year 2021 to 3 days in 2022, without taking approval of the Council of Ministers and without taking opinion of the LG…..
According to report, the file that in December 2015 under the old Excise policy regime, the then Assistant Commissioner of the Excise Department proposed on 04.12.2015 (while proposing the number of dry days for the year) to reduce the number of dry days to 3 from 23 days on the basis of what is followed by the neighboring States.
“The then Excise Commissioner on 04.12.2015 recorded in his notings dated 0412.2015 that all nearby states had already declared only 03 dry days in a year, and as per information collected from Excise Investigation Bureau (EIB), smuggling of liquor increase during dry days, and that liquor sale policy of Delhi should have consonance with neighbouring States and hence the policy of so many dry days (23 dry days in the year 2015) may be reviewed. “
“The then Principal Secretary (Finance) on 09.12.2015 recorded that concerns raised by the Excise Commissioner are valid and proposed to hold a meeting so that number of dry days is pruned. However, the Hon'ble Dy, CM over-ruled the proposal of the then Pr Secretary (Finance) to hold a meeting without assigning any reason and directed on 11.12.2015 in file CD No 015166743 to issue the notification for number of dry days for the year 2016,” the report said.