NEW DELHI, JULY 2: Delhi's BJP Government plans to remove churches from the list of places of worship. Excise Minister Rajender Gupta has recommended, in writing, that churches be removed from the list of religious places. His reason: Sacramental wine is distributed there. Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma has endorsed this suggestion. The issue is expected to come up at the Cabinet meeting on Saturday.In May, the Capital's Catholic churches had applied for a permit to procure 20,000 litres of wine from Goa. Gupta granted the permit with a rider that churches be excluded from the list of religious places for granting of Excise licence since wine is distributed there.Excise rules say that no IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) outlet is allowed within 75 m of any place of worship, including temples, churches and mosques. Incidentally, an application for an IMFL permit from Karol Bagh Union Club is pending with the Government. The club shares the boundary wall with the Delhi Bible Fellowship Worship Centrewhere prayers are held every Sunday. So, according to rules, the club cannot get a licence as churches are listed as religious places.``We have to look at these rules from the practical standpoint,'' Gupta told The Indian ExpressDrinking is a social habit and we certainly don't want any drunk entering a place of worship. But because wine is served in a church, why can't it be excluded from this rule?''The Minister said the Cabinet is yet to decide on this issue. Asked why he and the Chief Minister had signed the note before the Cabinet met, Gupta said their signatures did not amount to the Cabinet's decision.When asked if the liquor lobby was pressing for the decision, Gupta said: ``We have such applications before us but we cannot entertain them because of the existing rules.''Sensing that he was dealing with what could erupt into a major controversy, the then Chief Secretary P V Jayakrishnan (who is now the Civil Aviation Secretary) is said to have sought legal opinion on the BJP Government'sdecision.However, another file was prepared on the issue by the Excise Department apparently at the instance of Gupta in the first week of June. The new file had a photocopy of Gupta's note (with Sahib Singh's signature) as a reference and recommended removal of churches from the religious places.Along with this, another recommendation was tagged along, ostensibly to generate more revenue. It said: ``The excise rule which binds the Government to prohibit opening of IMFL shop within 75 m of jhuggi-jhopri cluster, should be relaxed in cases of new jhuggi-jhopri clusters, which have recently come up.'' Unfortunately for the BJP Government, Jayakrishnan's successor Omesh Saigal followed his predecessor's footstep. And sent this file, too, to the Legal Department saying its opinion may be sought. Sources say Gupta has made a third bid to get it included in a Cabinet note on the draft bill for the new Excise Policy.The exclusion of churches from the list was mentioned in the draft bill as one of thefeatures. However, sources say, Saigal dropped this controversial point from the draft bill and kept it as a point of deliberation in the forthcoming meeting of the Cabinet on Saturday. ``A church is a religious place, a place of worship. Denotifying it will rob it of its very sanctity,'' said Father George Pereira, spokesman for the Catholic Bishop Conference of India. ``We will see when it comes.'' According to Christian tradition, Christ served wine and bread during the Last Supper. Wine symbolised his blood, bread his body.
