District collectors can issue blanket order to shut liquor shops: Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court ruled that district collectors can issue specific closure orders for liquor shops during elections but cannot issue blanket orders.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday clarified that district collectors can issue a blanket order to shut liquor shops in the region for a certain period, like during the elections, to maintain law and order. It, however, clarified that the closure order cannot be general and has to be specific to each licence holder.

District collectors can issue blanket order to shut liquor shops: Bombay HC

A three-judge bench was adjudicating on a petition filed by three liquor shops in Pune that was referred to it after two different division benches expressed conflicting views on whether district collectors can issue blanket orders to shut multiple liquor shops.

The three Pune shops had approached the Mumbai bench of the high court in April challenging the orders issued by the Pune district collector to keep their establishments shut on April 14, 2024, on account of Ambedkar Jayanti.

They pointed to a 2018 judgement delivered by the Aurangabad bench of the high court, which held that under section 142 of the Maharashtra Prohibition Act, 1949, the collector can only issue orders to individual licensees to close their shops; the collector cannot pass a blanket order for the district. The bench was ruling on a petition filed by a liquor sellers’ union in Parbhani.

However, the Mumbai division bench, which heard the three petitions from Pune, was of the view that sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 142 were mutually exclusive and operated in different spheres. Sub-section (1) confers independent power on the collector to be exercised in the interest of public peace. Such power is required to be interpreted broadly and should not be confined to closing only one shop, the bench had said.

To resolve the conflict, the matter was then referred to a larger three-judge bench, comprising justice AS Chandurkar, justice Gauri Godse and justice Rajesh Patil. The bench said that on a plain reading of the provision, there appeared to be no restrictions on issuing closure orders to multiple licence holders simultaneously.

The empowering section requires the collector to form an opinion that keeping liquor shops was necessary in the interest of public peace, the bench said. And if the collector forms such an opinion, they are empowered to direct more than one licence holder when it comes to the sale of intoxicants or hemp.

“The collector is empowered to issue directions to more than one person, but the requirement is to form an opinion that such closure is in the interest of public peace, and the order has to be in writing to the persons holding licences for the sale of intoxicants or hemp to close the place where the intoxicant or hemp is sold,” said the bench. It, however, clarified that “the directions have to be specific to the licence holders and not a general direction.”