The Kerala Government on Wednesday told the High Court that it would hold a study on the impact of its liquor policy envisaging total liquor ban in ten years, indirectly giving credence to the argument of the bar owners opposing the ban that the policy was declared and was being implemented without looking into the possible after-effects.
Advocate General KP Dandapani told a division bench comprising Justices KT Sankaran and PD Rajan that the secretaries in the departments of Tourism and labour had been asked to carry out the study on the impact of the liquor policy on those sectors. This committee would submit its report within three weeks, the Advocate General said.
The Advocate General’s submission in the court came in response to its earlier directive to inform it about the reports on the move to bring in ‘practical’ changes to the liquor policy announced on August 22. The court had observed that there was no point in examining the cases related to liquor ban currently pending before it if the policy was going to be changed.
As the committee was to submit its report in three weeks’ time, the Government requested the court to defer by four weeks the hearing on the case related to the closure of bars as part of the liquor ban. The court accepted this request and extended the stay on the Government order to close down 292 bars till January 20. As per the earlier order, the stay was to expire on Friday.
The court dismissed a prayer of the Madya Viruddha Samithi (anti-liquor council) of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference for revocation of the interim order staying the closure of three and four-star bars citing faults in the petition. The case would now be taken up on January 14 for detailed hearing.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had last week announced in the State Assembly that the Government would bring in ‘practical’ changes to the liquor policy considering the concerns about its impact on the tourism sector and the anxieties about possible job-loss among the employees of the bars that were to be closed.
However, Chandy had said that there would be no change in the basics of the policy. Criticism had come up from several quarters including the State Cabinet itself that the liquor policy envisaging total liquor ban and declaration of Sundays as no-booze days would have serious impact on the tourism and IT sectors.