Nitish Kumar tweaks liquor law again, lowers fine to free vehicles carrying alcohol by five times

State police sources said over 50,000 four-wheelers are gathering dust across 800 police stations of the state. In several cases, the vehicles have rusted or broken down in the absence of upkeep and maintenance. “As resale value of most of these vehicles were lower than 50% of the insurance cover at time of their seizure, owners prefer not to get them released. But now, as vehicle owners will have to pay a fifth of that amount, they would be encouraged to get their vehicles released,” said a senior police officer.

The latest tweak follows a series of four key changes made in Bihar’s liquor law since April 2022. In April 2022, the state Cabinet had approved the release of first-time drinkers on the spot, against a fine of Rs 2,000-5,000, against the earlier punishment of mandatory imprisonment. Even the confiscation of the offender’s home upon recovery of liquor can now be reversed.

In a third change from February this year, the Nitish government restored the Rs 4 lakh compensation to the next of kin of hooch victims. Even though the law has always provided for compensation, the state government had not given it to any victims of the hooch tragedies in the state since the Gopalganj case of 2016 in which 19 people had died. Nitish, who had courted controversy by saying “Jo piyega wo marega (those who drink, will die)” in the Assembly last December, while refusing any compensation to the dead in the Saran hooch tragedy of December 2022, had a rethink after another tragedy occurred in April this year, in which 26 people died in East Champaran.

In December 2021, the then Chief Justice of India N V Ramana had flagged the Bihar liquor law as an example of “lack of foresight” that resulted in the High Court “being clogged with bail applications… a simple bail application takes a year to be disposed”.

It forced the Bihar government to make several changes in its liquor law in its 2022 Budget. Key amendments included reducing the punishment for drinking from 10 years to five. All offences, earlier heard by trial courts, “shall be disposed of through a summary trial by an Executive Magistrate not below the rank of Deputy Collector,” a move that is expected to unclog courts. Deletion of Section 55, which made cases involving all offences under the Act non-compoundable, can now be withdrawn, while both parties can now also strike a compromise in or outside the courts.

To activate the legislation, a clause has been inserted in Section 57, to allow release of vehicles confiscated for carrying liquor after payment of the new penalty, while Chapter VII of the Act, which deals with internment and externment of the accused, as well as imposition of curbs on their movement, has also been deleted, including its key sections: Section 67 (extension of period of externment), Section 68 (permission to return temporarily), and Section 70 (immediate arrest).

To focus on criminal networks rather than minors or individual violators, a new sub-section, 50A, has been planned, which will define bootlegging as an “organised crime”.