Smooth passage for amended liquor ban law in Bihar Assembly

The Bihar Prohibition and Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which dilutes some of the stringent provisions of the liquor prohibition law that is in force in the state since April 2016, was passed by the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday without any opposition from a surprisingly thinly attended Opposition benches in the House.

The Bihar Prohibition and Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which dilutes some of the stringent provisions of the liquor prohibition law that is in force in the state since April 2016, was passed by the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday without any opposition from a surprisingly thinly attended Opposition benches in the House.

CPI-ML legislators protest outside the Bihar assembly on Wednesday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and his party RJD’s chief whip Lalit Yadav were also not present. Though Congress leaders moved amendments to the Bill and termed it a result of recent court observations, they all fell.

Moving the Bill, minister for prohibition, excise and registration Sunil Kumar, who was a top police officer in the state before taking voluntary retirement, however, said the amendments were brought to strengthen the law further, make it more realistic and also save time of the judiciary. “It is heartening to see there is no opposition to the law even today and the amendments were proposed only on technical grounds. The response of the masses, especially women, has been very encouraging and it was evident during chief minister Nitish Kumar’s social reforms campaign recently, which I also attended,” he said.

The minister said the impact of the liquor prohibition law was not confined to Bihar only, but also outside, and several states were sending their teams to study it. “The government has also commissioned a study by the Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) on the social impact of prohibition and the preliminary reports suggest it has been a huge factor behind women’s empowerment, changed priorities of people and return of family bliss. This has given strength to the government to carry on with greater commitment,” he said.

The Bill proposes to relax some of the stringent provisions by replacing imprisonment with fine for the first-time or non-habitual offenders, failing which they would have to serve one-month simple imprisonment.

The bill, however, does not give the accused right to be set free on payment of fine, as the executive magistrate could deny release on the basis of the report of the police or excise officer and send the accused into custody.

The state government will appoint such executive magistrates in consultation with the Patna High Court. Such magistrates will enjoy the power of second class judicial magistrates.

Seized vehicles, containers, animals, premises or part of it used for liquor smuggling could also be released on payment of fine prescribed by the state government, failing which the process for their confiscation would be initiated. However, it would be for executive magistrate to take a final call on releasing the seized things.

The bill also makes a provision for special courts to deal exclusively with liquor-related cases. They will be headed by sessions judge, additional sessions judge, assistant sessions judge or judicial magistrate to be appointed in consultation with the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court and each district will have at least one. Several districts already have them.

On reservations expressed by Congress leaders Ajeet Sharma, Sameer Kumar Mahaseth and Ajay Kumar on some aspects, including possibility of police and officers misusing the law, the minister said adequate checks and balances have been put in place after detailed review and legal vetting. “”Over 230 officials from the police and prohibition & excise department have so far been sacked from service. Let me assure the House that no innocent will be implicated, but no culprit will be spared too,” he said.

Faced with continued opposition both within and outside House amid frequent hooch tragedies and harsh comments from the Supreme Court due to mounting legal cases, the Bihar government decided to come up with another round of amendments to scale down the penal provisions and introduce financial penalties, which will ease the load on courts.

The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed the state’s batch of appeals challenging grant of anticipatory and regular bails to accused under the liquor law, saying “the prosecution of the case should be made in all earnestness to secure conviction and punishment”.

As per official statistics, nearly 25 per cent of the total pendency of cases in lower courts and 20 per cent in the High Court is related to prohibition cases. In 2019, alarmed by the growing pendency, the Patna High Court had asked the state government to present a plan for how it plans to dispose these cases related to excise.

In July last year, the Patna High Court had directed that all proceedings related to confiscation of property under the prohibition law must be initiated and concluded within a period of 90 days from the date of appearance of the parties concerned and the appeal/revision, if any, be also decided within a period of 30 days from the date of initiation, failing which, the “things” (vehicle/property/etc.) shall be deemed to have been released in terms of several orders passed by this Court in the past.

The Assembly also passed the Bihar Police (Amendment) Bill, which has been necessitated following restructuring of police administration by dividing the state into 12 police zones to make the chain of command more effective and easy.

Bihar Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which increases the lending limit for the state to 3.5 per cent, and the Bihar Municipality (Amendment) Bill 2022, which would change the process for election of mayors and deputy mayors to check the alleged lobbying for the key positions, were also passed.