Grant 4 star licences to 22 more bars in 2 months, Kerala high court tells state

Kochi: Kerala high court on Tuesday asked the state to consider the applications of 22 bar owners for four star licences and grant them permission within two months.

The court made it clear that the permission should be granted subject to satisfying the conditions of eligibility for four-star licences.

Justice K. Surendra Mohan allowed the pleas of 22 bar owners across the state seeking four-star licence. The petitioners include Excalibur and Emerald Regency in Kottayam district, Rotana Hotels and several others. n Number of

They moved the court arguing that they had upgraded their three- star hotels to four-star facilities but even after that the state was not granting them FL 3 licence to function as four-star bars.

The petitioners argued that they had availed of multi-crore loans and so non-issuance of licence was discrimination. With this, the number of four-star bars in the state would be 55.

The state already has eight heritage bar hotels and 21 five-star hotels. The state had closed down 418 substandard bars and decided to shut all the bars except five- star as per its latest liquor policy

The High Court, however, cancelled the state's decision regarding the refusal to permit four-star bars. Appeals filed by the state and the bar owners against the single bench order are pending before a division bench.

The division bench had permitted the three-star bars to function as per an order directing the state to maintain status quo which is set to expire on December 12.