HC stays e-auction of liquor shops

The Orissa High Court today imposed an interim stay on the process of e-auction of liquor shops in the state, scheduled to be held on March 23 on a pilot basis for liquor shops of Cuttack and Balasore districts, after hearing a plea by wine merchants of the state.

"The HC observed that its previous judgement in the matter was not complied with and the state government brought out the notification for e-auction without fulfilling the court's direction to put in place certain framework before the starting the process. The court took a serious view of it and said the government cannot go ahead with such auction plan," said Suresh Chandra Tripathy, advocate for the wine merchants.

On February 6, 2015, the state government had issued notification announcing that liquor shop licences will be given through e-auction. Liquor shop owners had approached the High Court opposing the decision of the government, citing that it did not fulfil conditions laid out by the court.

The government said, the court decision is only a temporary delay.

"We will abide by the court order and will take necessary steps to amend our notifications. There will be only temporary disruption in the auction process due to the court order. But we are determined to conduct e-auction of liquor shops to bring transparency in allotment of liquor licenses and also augment revenue generation," said Damodar Rour, state excise minister, after the court decision.

Conceptualised in 2012 to bring in transparency in the system, the e-auction process of liquor shops started this year after a long legal battle.

In July 2013, the High Court had quashed the state government's decision, compelling it to move Supreme Court. The apex court, in its March 7, 2014 order, allowed Odisha government to go for e-auctioning of liquor shops subject to fulfilment of certain conditions such as consent of local people and barring people with criminal cases to take part in the auction along with other criteria. In December last year, the Naveen Patnaik government had decided to go ahead with the auction process and said MSTC would be conducting the process on behalf of the excise department.

It was scheduled that in the first phase, registrations would be invited for liquor shops of Cuttack and Balasore districts and auction would be conducted on March 23. Registration for remaining districts was to be accepted between March 24 and April 2, while auction was slated to be held between April 4 and April 8. For foreign liquor stores, application fee was fixed at Rs 30,000 while for country-made liquor shops, the fee was Rs 60,000.