Order reserved on Malabar Hill bar

MUMBAI, SEPTEMBER 17: Justice S H Kapadia of the Bombay High Court today reserved his judgement on a petition that sought permission to s...

MUMBAI, SEPTEMBER 17: Justice S H Kapadia of the Bombay High Court today reserved his judgement on a petition that sought permission to sell Indian Made Foreign Liquor in a beer bar in the high security area of Malabar Hill. The judgement on the petition that was admitted and was finally heard today has been reserved for four weeks.

The petitioner, Sadanand Shetty, who has been running a beer bar at Doongarshi road, Malabar Hill from 1967, had first moved the state government with an application seeking to sell hard liquor in his shop.

However, his application was turned down on the ground that the area is a high security risk, with the residences of the Governor- Raj Bhavan, that of the chief minister 8211; Varsha and Sahyadri as well as residences of judges and MLAs and other VVIPs were clustered in the area. Since the opening of any such joint in the area would create a law and order problem, the state had taken a decision against giving him the required permission.

The state government had accordinglyturned down his application for an FL-III license in April 1996. The petitioner had then approached the state government with a revision application, where again in September 1996 his application was rejected. The petitioner had then moved court.

According to the petitioner, his beer bar is placed one km from the Rajbhavan, 0.8 km from Sahyadri and 1.3 km from Varsha. There were no educational institutions or religious places in the stipulated distances. According to him, there was no clause under section 45 of the Bombay Foreign Liquor Rules, 1953 that could prevent him from selling hard liquor.lawHowever, state assistant government pleader Abhay Patki argued that the select committee that goes through these applications apart from going into the clauses of distances from educational institutions etc also asks for police reports. In this case, due to the high security risk area of Malabar Hill, the police report was adverse. Hence the application was rejected.

Shetty however had pointed out that thenearby WIAA Club had got the F-IV license whereby hard liquor was allowed to be sold. Patki in his rejoinder argued that there is a difference between a club and an open restaurant.