The pros and cons of prohibition

Last week, the Patna High Court heard a series of petitions challenging the way prohibition had been enforced in Bihar. At one point, a petitioner's counsel told the court that due to prohibition no investor would come to the state. "Why will they come to the state when they are not allowed to do things of their choice," he asked. Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh, part of the bench, asked the petitioner's counsel, "Are investors not going to Gujarat?" Gujarat was the first state to implement total prohibition in 1958. During the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by a doctor, senior counsel Y V Giri pointed out that alcohol was extensively used in homoeopathic medicine. "Even Dr (Naresh) Trehan said that limited intake of liquor is not harmful to health," said Justice Singh. He was alluding to heart surgeon Naresh Trehan, whose company Medanta is developing a super-speciality hospital in association with the state government and who shared the dais with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the hospital just a day before.