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Order on pleas against bar licence tender calls reserved

Justice T.S. Sivagnanam reserved orders on a batch of over 250 petitions from K. Shanmugam and others.

Chennai: The Madras high court reserved orders on a batch of petitions challenging the tender notice issued by Tasmac for grant of bar license, which among other things, imposed a condition that applicants have to quote 3 per cent or above on the actual sale of liquor in the wine shops as license fee for running the bar.

Justice T.S. Sivagnanam reserved orders on a batch of over 250 petitions from K. Shanmugam and others.

According to K. Selvaraj, counsel for Shanmugam, the latter was an existing bar licensee of the Tasmac wine shop at Nanganallur to sell only eatable items and collect empty bottles in the bar premises. He had been duly paying the license fee up to date. While so, Tasmac, by notice dated November 3, 2017 called for tenders for grant of bar license for the period from December 1, 2017 to November 30, 2018. As per the tender conditions, the applicant has to quote 3 per cent or above on the actual sale for October 2017 as an advance demand amount and this will be the license fee for December 2017. For every month, the license fee will be determined on the basis of the previous month’s sale and the percentage quoted by the applicant would be multiplied with the previous month’s sales, Selvaraj added.

Selvaraj contended that it was impossible for the petitioner to pay a minimum of 3 per cent as license fee since all purchasers in the wine shop do not enter the bar and do not drink inside it.

More than 65 per cent of purchasers take away bottles to their place. Therefore, 100 per cent sales in the bar does not take place as in Tasmac wine shops.
Further there was also the condition that the bar licensee should collect only empty bottles voluntarily left by consumers. Therefore, collection of empty bottles also does not match with actual sales in the wine shops. Every now and then, Tasmac increases the price of liquor whereas the price of eatable items and that of empty bottles does not increase at all. Tasmac has imposed the arbitrary condition that the petitioner should pay a minimum of 3 per cent on sales of the previous month and also pay service charges, namely GST, at the rate of 18 per cent on the license fee. The petitioner was not authorised to collect service tax from consumers, Selvaraj added.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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