Supreme Court to hear Bihar alcohol producers' request tomorrow

New Delhi, Jun 7 The Supreme Court today dismissed for tomorrow the hearing on a request of alcohol producers from Bihar looking for an illumination on its request giving time till July 31 to arrange old loads of mixed refreshments worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state.

The matter came up for hearing before an excursion seat including Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta however the guidance for Bihar government was absent.

"The state must be heard before we pass any request. This is a vital matter," the seat said.

Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, representing to the alcohol manufacturers, told the apex court that they had educated the Bihar government's advice about today's hearing.

Khurshid, who had specified the matter yesterday, had told the seat that the apex court's May 29 arrange talked about time to annihilate the stock yet it didn't show anything about its fare.

In the May 29 arrange, the apex court had stated, "Time to destroy/drain the stocks is stretched out up to July 31, 2017. It is clarified that no further augmentation will be conceded in future."

Prior, the court had extended till May 31 the due date of April 30 for discarding old stocks, including crude material, settled by the Nitish Kumar government which had forced a restriction on alcohol in the state from April 1 a year ago.

The apex court had on March 31 allowed time till May 31 to discard the old stocks and guided them to take after the determination gone by the Bihar government on transfer of stocks taking after the inconvenience of preclusion in the state.

The Bihar government, which has precluded consumption, stocking and offer of alcohol in the state had on March 30, had passed a determination by which it has enabled the organizations to trade their old stocks to different states.

The state government had allowed time to trade the excisable and non-excisable articles till April 30, after which they won't have the capacity to do as such.

On October 7, 2016, the apex court had remained the operation of Patna High Court judgement subduing the state's law restricting deal and consumption of a wide range of alcohol, saying alcohol and fundamental rights "don't go together".

The Bihar government has tested the high court decision of September 30, 2016, which had suppressed the notification banning consumption and sale of liquor in the state.

In any case, after the law was put aside, Bihar government had turned out with another law prohibiting sale and consumption of alcohol which was told on October 2, 2016.

It had told the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 to guarantee that the restriction at a bargain and consumption of liquor including Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) too spiced and residential alcohol, proceeded in the state.