HC quashes e-auction order for liquor shops in Odisha

State govt had initially issued a notification on February 28, this year, announcing allotment of liquor shop licences through e-auctioning

The Odisha High Court on Wednesday quashed the modified notification of the state government for e-auctioning of liquor shops.

The division bench of the High Court comprising Justice I Mohanty and Justice BN Mohapatra observed that the revised notification is not practicable and cannot be implemented, said Jaydeep Pal, a counsel for the petitioners.

“The current arrangement will continue until the government takes a fresh decision,” he added.

The state government had initially issued a notification on February 28, this year, announcing allotment of liquor shop licences through e-auctioning and discontinuation of previous method of allotting it through lottery.

Resisting the decision, the liquor shop owners had approached the high court for redressal of their grievances. After the petitioners pointed out several flaws in the notification during the course of the hearing, the government had assured to withdraw it and issue a fresh one.

Accordingly, the government, in March, came out with a revised notification and rescheduled the auction of liquor shop licences for Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and Country Sprit (CS) to June onwards.

As many as eighty cases were filed opposing the notifications of the state government.

The last allotment of country and foreign liquor shop licenses took place in 2005 and every year, these were getting renewed. There are about 1131 IMFL and more than 500 country liquor shops in the state. Odisha government collected Rs 1,380 crore revenue from the excise sector during 2011-12 and aims to take it up to Rs 1,700 crore in the current fiscal.