Liquor ban: Nothing wrong with denotifying highways inside cities, says SC

New Delhi: In a move where the Punjab government observed a law saying restaurants situated within 500 metres of National Highways can serve liquor within their premises, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said there is nothing wrong with denotifying highways inside cities.

Following a Supreme Court order, thousands of pubs, restaurants and bars have been forced to shut down, saying that liquor cannot be served near national and state highways.

The SC said that the purpose of the ban was to ensure that people do not drink and drive on highways, a report in The News Minute read. “There are no such issues when the roads are within the city,” the apex court said, while adding that denotifying such roads may have intelligible differentia.

The court made the observation while responding to a plea filed by Arrive Safe Society, a Chandigarh based NGO. The NGO alleged that the Chandigarh administration had issued notification to denotify roads to bypass Supreme Court’s order, the report added.

The NGO had moved the SC after Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed its plea stating that the administrtion had not voilated any law by issuing the said notification.

The apex court had meanwhile ruled that states were not wrong in denotifying highways within the city to avoid shutting down of liquor shops and restaurants and hotels serving liquor.

Meanwhile, states like Karnataka have already approached Centre asking to denotify national highways passing through the limits of urban local bodies.