Only one bottle per person, says High Court

07/05/2020, MOHAMED IMRANULLAH S., CHENNAI

The Madras High Court on Wednesday refused to stay the State government’s decision to re-open liquor shops in the State from Thursday. It, however, ordered that only one bottle (750 ml) of any kind of liquor should be sold to a purchaser and that no customer should be permitted to purchase more than twice in a week with a minimum gap of three days.

Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana directed the government to encourage online booking of tokens (to be issued depending upon age group for collecting liquor from retail shops at different hours of the day) after making payments through digital mode and ordered that the online consumers alone could be allowed to purchase two bottles at a time.

They also directed Tasmac to discourage payment of cash for purchase of liquor since it leads to complaints of overpricing and use e-wallet payment system at the retail shops as far as possible. It was also made clear that sales bills should be issued to every customer with his/her name, address and Aadhaar number.

If any of the shops fails to issue bills, it shall be closed forthwith and not allowed to be open without further orders from the court, the judges said. They said that steps such as barricading and insisting upon masks.

The interim orders were passed on a batch of public interest litigation petitions filed against the government’s move to reopen the liquor shops despite the lockdown to fight COVID-19.