SC upholds Kerala's liquor ban of less-than-five-star hotels

Tuesday, 29 December 2015 By SCOI Report SCOI Reports

The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Vikramajit Sen and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh today upheld the Kerala Government’s liquor policy which was challenged as being discriminatory.

Petitioners, who included three and four star hotels in the state, assailed the policy because it restricted the grant of bar licences to only five star hotels.

The bench apparently found merit in the state government’s argument that discrimination in favour of the five star hotels was justified on the ground of promotion of tourism, and to curb the practice of drinking among the youth of the state, who frequently visited the three and four star hotels.

The Kerala high court had upheld the policy on 31 March this year.

The high court’s judgment was under challenge by way of civil appeal in the Supreme Court.

Legally India had covered the hearing of this case exhaustively.

The judgment, when uploaded, will be analysed for its highlights.

This was the last judgment delivered by Justice Sen, before his retirement, tomorrow.

The Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for a four star hotel, Hotel Sky Pearl, in this case, had invited criticism that his conduct of appearing for a private party was improper.

SCOI ReportsKerala liquor banVikramajit SenShiva Kirti SinghMukul RohatgiSupreme CourtKerala high court

Comments

Rambo 30 Dec 2015, 05:04
+6 -2
Can we have more articles on legal education please? LI used to expose scams in law schools and the various problems faced by students. Such stories have completely dried up. Instead you only do reports on placements and high salaries, glossing over the deeper problems faced by law schools (corruption poor infrastructure, low quality of faculty etc) . This is very sad.
Manufacturing dissent 31 Dec 2015, 04:57
+2 -1
Kian will never bit the hand that feeds him. There is a conspiracy of silence that exists between LI and the leading NLUs. You will see LI picking on soft targets, like lesser NLUs and other law schools, or do some cosmetic stories on some problems at NLSIU, NALSAR, NUJS etc. But you will never see sustained coverage on the systemic problems and corruption that plague these places. No in-depth story on where crores meant for infrastructure vanish, why alumni of NLUs mysteriously get rejected for faculty positions at their alma mater and the VCs prefer to hire incompetent people from vague law schools etc.
kianganz 31 Dec 2015, 05:08
+2 -0
Don't dispute that we could do more coverage of NLUs, but a gap in your analysis is that the NLUs don't 'feed us' at all.

We're more than happy to pick on NLUs, and have done many times in the past year or so (take RMLNLU's handling of Clataclysm, GNLU's discplinary record and lack of transparency in recruitments, NLS and NUJS' faculty exodus, etc...

Some of these institutions then retaliate by not responding to our requests for comments anymore, but that's about it.

The systemic corruption problems, on the other hand, are really hard to stand up without help from you, the students or faculty.

The conspiracy of silence exists not between us and NLUs, but amongst the members of these institutions, most of whom are too afraid to speak out about something that they think could hurt the brand of their institution.
RNR 31 Dec 2015, 09:16
+0 -1
My prediction came true, nearly! https://rudrajyotinathray.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/cent-percent-sen-precedent/
X 1 Jan 2016, 11:47
+2 -0
Kian one thing u can do is a report (perhaps in Mint) comparing the faculty of the different NLUs. The IITs and IIMs have succeeding in attracting faculty who are alumni and have done higher studies abroad.

http://thewire.in/2015/12/13/should-indias-elite-universities-be-partial-to-foreign-phds-in-faculty-hires-17257/
https://www.iiitd.ac.in/people/faculty/departments

Now, in comparison very few NLU grads are teaching at NLUs, and those who do are often treated badly by admin and other faculty, who are jealous and insecure. The only exception is NLUD (and no, I am not being biased: please ask students at NLSIU).
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