Chennai: A Division Bench of the Madras High Court has stayed the operation of an order passed by a single judge in January this year directing Tamilnadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) to close down all bars attached to its retail liquor shops within six months since there were no clear-cut legal provisions for their operation.
The bench of Chief Justice Munishwer Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy also permitted TASMAC to amend the rules to facilitate running of bars near liquor vending shops.
On 31 January, a single judge of the court had cited the lack of provision in its rules and prohibited TASMAC from running bars. The judge further directed the Tasmac to close all the existing bars in six months.
Following this, TASMAC moved an appeal challenging the order. When the plea came up for hearing, Advocate-General R Shunmugasundaram contended that the single judge ha passed the impugned order going beyond the scope of the writ petition.
He also claimed that the single judge had failed to appreciate the fact that sale of liquor was monopolised by the State government not with the aim of making profits but only to avoid deaths due to consumption of illegal and poisonous arrack and toddy.