Roads within city can be exempt from liquor ban: SC

In what seems to be a big relief for pubs shut down along the highway, especially those in Bengaluru and Chandigarh, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that there was nothing wrong with denotifying highways if such roads are within a city.

The apex court said the purpose of its ban was to ensure high speeding vehicles on highways don’t have drivers under influence of liquor. “There are no such issues when the roads are within the city,” said the court. It added that denotifying such roads as highways may have intelligible differentia.

The statement comes in the wake of the apex court hearing a plea against the decision of the Chandigarh administration to denotify certain roads allegedly with an aim to “circumvent” its verdict banning liquor vends within 500 metres from the state and national highways. The court has deferred hearing on the plea by a week.

The plea was filed by an NGO, Arrive Safe Society, of Chandigarh that has alleged that the administration issued the notification to bypass Supreme Court’s December 15, 2016 order banning liquor vends in national and state highways.

The NGO had moved the top court after Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed its plea holding that it could not refer any law which has been violated while issuing the said notification.