SC transfers pleas challenging Bihar liquor law to itself from Patna HC, seeks state's response

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Bihar government to file response within three weeks on the pleas challenging the Constitutional validity of its stringent liquor law and also ordered transfer of similar petitions to itself from the Patna High Court.

“As identical issue is pending consideration before this court, it is appropriate that the other writ petitions filed before the high court need to be transferred and heard along with the SLP pending here. The transfer petition is allowed, said the bench which comprised Justices A M Khanwilkar and C T Ravikumar.

The bench was hearing three petitions on the issue, including the one filed by the International Spirits and Wines Association of India.

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The bench said the issue in all the petitions pertained to the validity of the Act and asked the state government, represented by senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, to file the reply within three weeks and list the cases for hearing the first week of April.

“This is all about the validity of the Act. The reply has been filed before the Patna High Court and now it cannot be improved. You file your affidavit. Same arguments, same affidavit and same material will be relevant in all the cases as the validity is under challenge in all of them,” the bench said.

On January 27, another bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana had refused to entertain a plea of the Bihar government seeking an observation that it did not make any remark on January 11 on the validity of a provision of the state liquor law, prohibiting the grant of anticipatory bail.

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The apex court had approved orders of the Patna High Court granting pre-arrest bail in such cases.

The top court, on January 11, had dismissed 40 appeals of the state government challenging the grant of anticipatory bail to accused under stringent state law, the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, saying these matters have choked courts and 14-15 Patna high court judges are hearing these cases only.

As per a recent report of the Patna High Court Registry, presently 39,622 bail applications, which include 21,671 anticipatory and 17,951 regular bail applications, are pending before the assigned benches. Further, 36,416 fresh bail applications, including 20,498 anticipatory and 15,918 regular bail applications are yet to be taken up.

As per the state's police records, 3,48,170 cases were lodged and 4,01,855 arrests made under the Bihar Prohibition and Excise law until October last year and about 20,000 bail pleas in such cases are pending disposal either in the high court or in district courts.

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