Skip to main content

That's true of Gujarat too: Patna HC says, Bihar's liquor ban led to illegal liquor trade; cops, officials love it

A recent Patna High Court judgment on alcohol ban in Bihar can as well be applied to Gujarat. As reported by a legal news portal, under the title "State's Alcohol Ban Led To Illegal Liquor Trade; Police, Excise, Tax, Transport Dept Officials Love The Ban As It Means Big Money: Patna HC",  the story by Malavika Prasad says that while quashing the penalty of demotion imposed on an inspector on the ground that he had been negligent in implementing the excise prohibition law, the Patna High Court observed that though  the law was passed with the objective of improving public health, "for several reasons, it finds itself on the wrong side of the history".
Interestingly, one would only need to replace Bihar with Gujarat when the story says this: The court observed that the prohibition law in the State has, in fact, given rise to unauthorized trade of liquor and other contraband items, and that the police, excise, tax and transport department officials "love" the liquor ban as for them it "means big money". Isn't the same true for Gujarat? 
The story quotes Justice Purnendu Singh's  October 29 order which says, I quote, "The Article 47 of the Constitution of India while mandating the duty of the State to raise standards of living and to improve the public health at large and as such State Government enacted Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 with the said objective, but for several reasons, it finds itself on the wrong side of the history."
He added, "The prohibition has, in fact, given rise to unauthorized trade of liquor and other contraband items. The draconian provisions have become handy for the police, who are in tandem with the, smugglers. Innovative ideas to hoodwink law enforcing agency have evolved to carry and deliver the contraband. Not only the police official, excise official, but also officers of the State Tax department and the transport department love liquor ban, for them it means big money".
The court further observed that  that the number of registered cases  against the king pin/syndicate operators are "few"  in comparison to the "magnitude" of cases registered against the "poor who consume liquor and those poor people and are prey of hooch tragedy",  emphasizing that the life of the majority of the poor section of the State who are facing wrath of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act are "daily wagers who are only earning member of their family".
Surely, what's true of Bihar is also true for Gujarat. There have been large number of hooch tragedies in which the poor who consume illicit liquor have died. Despite the fact that the Gujarat government has progressively gone ahead with making the law strict, with strong punishment for those producing illicit liquor, I am personally witness to how in Ahmedabad's Khanpur vegetable market a woman sitting on the street with a box to sell tobacco, cigarette, bidi, paan masala etc. also sold liquor pouches. Individuals knew this woman, and she would just give away pouches from within the box quietly as and when they would approach her. I couldn't believe my eyes -- all this was happening as we were buying vegetables!
While I have never done it, as I don't drink, those who do tell me the spots from where one could buy "any brand". You just need to stop your vehicle at that stop, and someone would come asking what brand is needed.  Is it authentic, I would query, and the answer would be, "It would seem so... And surely much, much cheaper than the liquor available in the designated shops that are allowed to sell it only to license holders." In fact, there is no dearth of people who say, you can get the delivery at home -- it's all a phone call away, and in less than an hour!
Recently, the Gujarat government declared the GIFT City area off Gandhinagar -- promoted as a prestige finance-IT hub project by Narendra Modi -- as prohibition free. I was talking to a person who is a license holder whether he would now buy liquor there, and the answer was, "No way ... It's very very costly! I wouldn't go there to buy a bottle there ever!"
Then there is another racket: The shops in army cantonment area in Ahmedabad are said to sell duty free liquor to army personnel. There are people who seek to befriend with such service personnel and "buy" the desired brand, fully authentic, from them -- at a price advantageous to both sides... 

Comments

  1. Gujarat is maintaining it liquor free state nobody's should doubt about it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

NOTE: While there is no bar on viewpoint, comments containing hateful or abusive language will not be published and will be marked spam

TRENDING

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

Gujarat a police state? How top High Court advocate stunned a senior-most journalist

Rajdeep Sardesai, Anand Yagnik This is a continuation of my earlier blog on well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai's lecture in memory of the late Achyut Yagnik at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA). I was a little surprised when I received the intimation about the venue for the lecture.

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Why predictions of an imminent collapse of the Russian economy may be wrong

A veteran Canadian journalist, settled in Russia, stated in a Facebook post that President Donald Trump "is apparently listening to experts who tell him that Russia's economy is on the verge of 'imploding,' and if he just squeezes a bit harder," his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "will fall into line."

Talking of increased corporate control over news, Rajdeep Sardesai 'evades' alternative media

When I received an intimation that well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai was to speak at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on February 2, my instant reaction was: I know what he is going to say—his views are quite well known; he wouldn’t be saying anything new. Yet, I decided to go and listen to him to catch his mood at a time when the media, as he (and I) knew it, is changing fast due to the availability of new technological tools that were not accessible even a decade ago.

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

I'm flattered: A New York media house claims I was a KGB agent! Wow, I didn't know that

I was astonished, let me say pleasantly surprised, on receiving a comment by Rich TVX News  on my blog   "Why predictions of an imminent collapse of the Russian economy may be wrong" (January 28).  I don't know who wrote the strange comment from this "media house", which is based in New York, and claims to "hold sway not only among the masses but also within global corridors of power, influencing esteemed politicians and shaping international diplomacy, especially evident during pivotal events like the ongoing crisis in Ukraine."