H.C. Arora, Advocate vs State of Punjab and another Kuljeet Singh Vs State of Punjab and others

Ranjan Gogoi, C.J.—With the consent of the parties, all the four writ petitions are taken up together for consideration and are being disposed of by a common order.

Civil Writ Petition No. 11380 of 2011 pertains to the timings of opening and closure of the liquor shops in the State of Punjab whereas Civil Writ Petitions No. 19037 of 2010 and 1713 of 2011 pertain to the minimum distance that is required to be maintained between the liquor shops and educational institutions or religious shrines. In Civil Writ Petition No. 20488 of 2011 the relief sought for is that the the liquor shops in Mohali City should not be allowed to be established in open spaces/green belts owned by GMADA particularly close to the traffic signals and should be shifted to the commercial areas of the city.

The issues arising in these writ petitions pertain to the policy matters which are covered by laid down norms framed by the State Government from time to time. Whether the liquor shops should be opened at any particular time and whether in the State of Punjab such timings should coincide with the timings in the other States like Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are primarily matters for the Executive to decide. What is maximum distance that should be maintained between the liquor shops and the educational institutions/religious shrines or traffic signals and also whether liquor shops should remain open on certain days i.e. Independence Day, Republic Day etc., again, are the matters of policy, though there can be no two opinions that a reasonable distance should be maintained between a liquor shop and a educational institution/religious shrine. What would be the reasonable distance or what would be the appropriate timings of opening and closure of the liquor shops are matters which are required to be decided on consideration of a wide variety of factors which the Court may not be well equipped to deal with.

We have noticed that in the State of Punjab the Liquor Policy is framed every year in the month of February in the light of the experiences that have been gained in working of the previous policies. In this manner, the new policy for the year 2012-13 is likely to be framed in the month of February, 2012 to be made effective from 01.04.2012. We, therefore, deem it appropriate to leave it to the wisdom and discretion of the appropriate authorities of the State to fix the timings of operation of the liquor shops in the State after taking into account all the relevant facts and circumstances. While framing the new policy for the new year, the State Government will also take into account all the relevant factors to determine what would be the reasonable distance between the liquor shops and educational institutions/religious shrines and traffic signals and whether the liquor shops should be allowed in open spaces. Beyond the aforesaid observations and directions, no further order of the Court, according to us, will be called for. We, therefore, close all the four writ petitions in the above terms.