SHC orders sealing liquor stores across Sindh again

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has once again ordered the Excise & Taxation (E&T) Department to immediately seal all liquor stores throughout the province.

The SHC directed the provincial government on Thursday to evolve a mechanism in consultation with the stakeholders, including the petitioners and liquor store owners, to ensure that a practical, transparent and implementable mechanism could be put forward to ensure that licensed stores sell wine and liquor only to local and foreign non-Muslims in quantities restricted by the permissible quota as part of their religious ceremonies. The court also ordered making proper record of the sales, which would be publicly available.

The bench directed the Sindh police chief to ensure compliance of the court order and submit a relevant report on Friday (today).

The directives came on identical petitions against issuance of liquor store licences to retailers in Muslim-populated areas of Karachi and Thatta. Petitioners Irfan Ali Bikak, Bushra Ibrahim, Sharyar David and others had condemned the issuance of licences by the E&T department and submitted that liquor stores were being allowed to operate in Muslim-dominated areas in violation of the law.

SHC’s division bench, headed by Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, observed that it was abundantly clear that the mechanism envisaged by the Sindh Prohibition Rules 1979 for granting permit on prescribed form to non-Muslims to purchase wine or liquor as per designated quota were clearly and openly violated to the extent that while there were 120 stores selling wine and liquor throughout the province, there was not a single permit holder in the length and breadth of the province, which was a complete violation of the framework established for the sale of alcoholic beverages.

The court observed that liquor store owners were bound to ensure that they only sold alcohol to non-Muslims in limited quota and only as part of religious festivals. The court observed that until a mechanism as undertaken by the provincial government took place, the stores spread all over the province were clearly engaged in illegal sale without ensuring that it was sold to only non-Muslims and that too in prescribed quota, thus conducting business not only in complete violation of the said prohibition rules but also contrary to the injunctions of the Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order 1979.

Sindh Advocate General Zamir Ghumro submitted that pursuant to the court orders, meetings were conducted with stakeholders from different religious backgrounds, and he sought time to submit his conclusive report.

The E&T director general appeared before the court but was unable to provide any valuable assistance as to the allegation that there was no mechanism of ascertaining that the current quota of six units or one litre a month as announced by the notification.

The AG, the E&T DG and others’ counsel conceded that the mechanism of granting permits under Rule 11 of the Sindh Prohibition Rules 1979 was not in force any more, in terms of which permits were granted to non-Muslims in the form of booklets, wherein paragraph of the individual was affixed and the said permit was to be registered with a particular liquor store, where all of the purchases made by an individual were entered in the register to verify their religious background and allocated quota.

The court observed that it also surfaced that the mandatory requirement imposed by the 1979 rules was violated to the extent that throughout the province there was no single permit holder in the record of the excise department.

The court observed that the rules were not only being violated but the mechanism envisaged by the legislation was also not in place, resulting in no check on the quantity of alcohol sold to any individual or certainty that the individual was a Muslim or not.

The SHC observed that all the counsels agreed that no legislative changes had been made so far to amend the mechanism set up by the prohibition rules, where permits as per form were to be given to those non-Muslims who wanted to buy alcohol.

The petitioners’ counsel submitted that the current lack of mechanism was fuelling the grievances of his clients that alcoholic beverages were being sold as simply as soft drinks.

Representatives of Christian and Hindu communities, Khadim Bhutto and Ramesh Kumar, submitted that liquor stores were selling alcohol without confirming the religious background of the buyer or keeping any quota record.

They submitted that their sale should also be banned during the fasting month of Christians.

The AG submitted that if 10 days were granted by the court, a proper mechanism fully implementing the Hadd order and the prohibition rules could be put in place.

However, the counsel of liquor store owners objected to any interim arrangement and contended that he had no relevant instructions from his clients and sought time to do so.

The court directed the E&T DG to immediately seal all liquor stores of the province and gave the AG to 30 days to come up with a mechanism for the sale of alcoholic beverages only to non-Muslims.

The court had earlier directed the E&T department to revoke all licences issued in violation of the relevant laws.