Kerala High Court Directs BEVCO To Abide By Orders Of Excise Commissioner To Relocate Or Equip Liquor Stores With Basic Facilities

The Kerala High Court has asked the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (BEVCO) to abide by the instructions of the Excise Commissioner in relocating the 89 liquor outlets found to be lacking basic facilities.   

Justice Devan Ramachandran while hearing the matter remarked:

"Thanks to the petitioner, with the interference of the Court, long queues have been eliminated to some extent from in front of the liquor shops and the State has not yet witnessed its third wave of Covid. Otherwise, we would have been sitting on a catastrophic time bomb by now."

While stating so, the Bench also made it clear that short queues were still found in front of certain liquor stores, but refused to comment on the same since it was improving over time and expects the Corporation to follow the instructions of the State. 

The matter will be heard again on 16th September. BEVCO has been directed to inform the Court as to the progress made so far in the matter on the next hearing date.

Advocate Naveen T representing BEVCO in the matter raised an objection to the 27 shops out of the 89 recommended by the Excise Commissioner was already supplied with the essential facilities. 

It claimed that most of them were upgraded recently and that they were equipped with sufficient facilities.

The Court condemned the attitude of BEVCO, stating as follows:

"You may be the highest revenue making industry in the State, but you cannot gloat that you are the best. You are still bound by the directions of the concerned authorities." 

The Corporation submitted that 3 retail shops were already shifted and that 24 more will be relocated immediately. 

It was also submitted that another 24 stores will be upgraded to provide essential facilities and that in the remaining 38, the stores were already equipped with the facilities.

The Court, however, noted that BEVCO cannot sit in judgment over the Excise Commissioner since it was a statutory body. 

Therefore, unless the order is modified by the Commissioner itself, BEVCO is bound to abide by its orders.

On an earlier occasion, the Court had commented that the third wave of Covid may not be far away if the overcrowding in front of liquor outlets without adherence to Covid protocol was not controlled.

Accordingly, the State had earlier informed the Court that out of the 306 outlets found in the State, around 96 were found to be short of basic facilities. 

After a few proceedings, noting the steps taken by the authorities, the Court had expressed its appreciation for the efforts taken by the Excise Commissioner and Kerala State Beverages Corporation Ltd. for crowd control in front of retail liquor stores and better infrastructure at such facilities across the State.

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