RJD fires at Nitish Kumar over Bihar prohibition; CJI Ramana’s remarks is ammo

As Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s prohibition law comes in for fresh attacks from the opposition, the BJP said continuing seizures of liquor show that there are loopholes in the system.

PATNA: Bihar’s lead opposition party, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Tuesday renewed its attacks on the Nitish Kumar government over the state’s prohibition law after Chief Justice of India NV Ramana recently held up the law as an example of legislation drafted with “lack of foresight”. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in alliance with Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), also asked the chief minister to take a relook at the law’s implementation “to make it more effective”.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has made it clear that the prohibition law wasn’t up for a review and called for public shaming of those flouting liquor ban in the state (HT Photo/Santosh Kumar)

“The chief minister has been shown the mirror by the CJI. His unilateral decision has piled up cases in court. Prohibition has been thrust upon people of Bihar and it has helped the rise of a parallel economy in the state,” said RJD leader Shakti Yadav.

“His decision has spelt doom for Bihar,” Yadav said about the law enacted byBihar in 2016 to deliver on the JD(U)’s poll promise in the 2015 state elections.

CJI Ramana, delivering the Fifth Late Shri Lavu Venkateswarlu Endowment Lecture on “Indian Judiciary: Challenges of Future” in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijaywada, made a fleeting reference to the prohibition law in Bihar. Referring to Bihar’s prohibition law, the country’s top judge said such laws lead to courts being flooded with cases making dispensation of speedy justice difficult. It appears, he said, that the Bihar legislature has “not been able to make optimum use” of the parliamentary standing committee system to “enhance scrutiny of Bills”.

The impact on subordinate courts is sharper. According to official figures, every fourth case before the lower courts is related to the prohibition law. The highest number of cases, 26,270 were filed in 2019, up from 20,548 in 2018, though it dropped to 12,763 in 2020 and 8,070 in the first five months of 2021, largely due to the impact of the pandemic.

In the subordinate courts, 217,000 excise cases have piled up in the last three years, besides, the 230,000 bail cases related to prohibition.

The top judge’s observation came just as chief minister Nitish Kumar was halfway through his samaj sudhar yatra (social reforms campaign) designed to mobilise support for his prohibition law and against other social ills such as child marriage and dowry.

Kumar has made it clear that the law wasn’t up for a review. On Monday, he called for public shaming of those flouting liquor ban in the state and rejected calls for relaxing the stringent prohibition law for those coming to the state from elsewhere.

RJD national vice-president Shivanand Tiwary who was excise and prohibition minister of Bihar in 2000-2005 in the Rabri Devi-led RJD government, said that he is worried for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Tiwary said the chief minister’s approach to prohibition “is not a sign of a healthy mindset. As per the government data, 2.5 to 3 lakh cases related to liquor are pending in courts. The CJI’s comments are in the light of this.”

The BJP, which has been asking for a policy review, also waded into the back-and-forth between the opposition and Nitish Kumar’s party.

“The very fact that liquor is being seized every day shows that it is still being sold, and points to loopholes in the system. This means that the administration is not implementing it properly and some want the whole exercise to fail. The entire thing needs to be reviewed by taking all people concerned in confidence,” said BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel.

HAM-S, another alliance partner of the JD (U) has also been advocating for changes in prohibition law.