NEW DELHI, India—The Supreme Court of India on December 15 banned the sale of liquor on all the National and State highways to control alcohol related incidents on the road. Every year thousands of Indian citizens lose their lives in more than 150,000 recorded road inceidents.
Directing the union and state governments to ban liquor sales on national and state highways, the three member bench, headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur quoted, “We would not like any vendors on national highways, state highways, advertisements or signage about availability of liquor shops. All sign boards should be removed. Roads should be absolutely free from any distraction or attractions. Visibility is the first temptation”.
The apex court has reportedly directed governments to either displace the existing liquor shops 500 meters away from highways or cancel the license of liquor shops. It is learnt that liquor shops not abiding by the new mandatory terms won’t have their licenses renewed after March 31, 2017.
Although the counsels of state government tried to challenge the court’s decision, the Chief Justice rebutted them bluntly.
The Punjab government’s counsel faced the court’s ire for contending the high amount of revenue generation by the Excise Department from liquor sales in Punjab. The court said to the counsel, “You’re acting like a mouthpiece for liquor lobbys by defending the policy. You want the excise minister to be happy, make the government happy… let 1.5 lakh people die but you must serve liquor”. Notably, the SAD led Punjab government had issued thousands of new licenses for liquor shops in its ten years of rule.
When the Jammu & Kashmir’s counsel argued that the people will face difficulties because of the state’s terrain in accessing the shops if they are put away from the highway, the supreme court’s bench said that you can start door to door delivery of liquor – mocking implying that if they couldn’t live without alcohol on such trips, perhaps such drastic measures should be taken.
Punjab Government would rather have alcohol and drugs than water – Badals are involved in these businesses why would they want alcohol and drugs banned. During their power Punjab has drowned with alcohol and drugs, killing youth another way to destroy Punjab what they did not achieve post 1984. Corruption is Current Punjab Government’s big achievement.
Punjab new govt of 2017 needs to build state of art transport hubs
1) Bus Stands
2) Railway stations
3) Airports
4) Taxi stands
In all its districts and towns.
Alcohol,drugs and smoking should be banned in Punjab and India.
A law to this effect should be enacted by the law maker’s.
The Punjab Government wanted to keep liquor sales legal on the roadside because of the money it gets from them no matter how many innocent lives are lost because of the resultant alcoholism and drunk drivers. If that is the warped thinking of Punjabi polity why would they wish to hinder drug sales in Punjab which brings in even more revenue, consolidates power and kills Sikh jawans into the bargain? Punjab should be a dry state and ban alcohol altogether – they would soon clean up the drinking water and milk if they only had that to drink.