The Supreme Court today dismissed an appeal filed by the Punjab government challenging an HC order quashing the grant of licenses to nearly 1,000 liquor vends in three districts.Justices K.G. Balakrishnan and A.R. Lakshmanan dismissed its appeal against the Punjab and Haryana HC order and directed fresh auction of 1,000 liquor vends in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr districts.In an interim order, the court had maintained the ad hoc arrangement made by the HC directing earlier allottees to run the liquor vends. It also directed that the successful bidders in the fresh auctioning be given charge of the liquor vends from November 15.However, the bench protected the revenue interests of the state by stipulating that in case the successful bid in the fresh auction was lower than the last one, the vend would be leased to the previous bidder.The HC in March had set aside the auction of these vends on a petition filed by Sanjeev Bhandari, a wine contractor who had alleged that the auctions were conducted illegally under the directions of Mukul Joshi, Finance Commissioner, Taxation, Punjab, considered close to liquor baron Ponty Chadha. A higher bid of Rs 72 crore for Hoshiarpur was ignored by the department which settled for Rs 70 crore.After seeing the video recording of the auction, the HC agreed that there was a bid of Rs 72 crore by the petitioner which was ignored. The Division Bench had declared that the auction was conducted in violation of Punjab Liquor Licence Rules. The State of Punjab together with some firms of Ponty Chadha had appealed against the HC judgment.
