16.12.16

SC bans sale of liquor along all highways

The Supreme Court has banned the sale of alcohol along national and state highways and set a deadline of April 1 next year to shut down all liquor shops situated within a distance of 500 metres from highways.
A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao directed that all highways must be made free of liquor shops even if they passed through a municipal area or a town.The court said banning of liquor shops was urgently needed as around 1.5 lakh people died every year in road accidents, many of them caused by drunken driving.The court turned down the plea of liquor merchants' associations of various states who said licences to run liquor vends were given as per rules and any sudden change would cause a huge loss to the exchequer too.
The SC, dealing with petitions filed across the country against liquor shops along highways, said the shops were a distraction to travellers and proximity and accessibility of liquor on highways was a major reason for drunken driving. In order to ensure the implementation of its order, the court directed all states and Union Territories to immediately remove advertisements of liquor shops along highways.Chief secretaries and DGPs of all states UTs have been directed to monitor the implementation of the order. Liquor shops whose licence has expired or is about to expire will not be entitled to any extension and no fresh licence to open vends along highways will be issued by government authorities, the SC said on Thursday . The court had earlier reserved its order and had said that it was the constitutional obligation of governments to protect the lives of people who got killed in road accidents on highways due to drunk driving. It had said such shops could not be allowed to operate just because the state earned a huge revenue from them. 

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