Nitish Kumar vows a more stringent law after Patna high court scraps booze ban

PATNA: A day after the Patna high court scrapped the Bihar government's prohibition law, saying it was "draconian" and said "can't be justified in a civilised society", chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Saturday that he would notify an even more stringent Prohibition and Excise Act on Sunday to keep Bihar dry.

"We will mark the centenary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi's Champaran Satyagraha movement by implementing the new Act on Gandhi Jayanti," Kumar said at an event in Patna to mark Agrasen Jayanti.

The new Act contains harsher provisions such as making all adults culpable in case a liquor-related offence is committed in a house and imposition of community penalty in case of repeated offence of manufacturing liquor or trading in it in a village.

But legal exerts said even the new Act would not stand the scrutiny of law precisely because many provisions of the previous Act have been carried forward in the new Act. "The state government should better pore over the HC order before notifying the new Act. In my opinion, it too would be quashed if it is challenged," said counsel Y V Giri, who argued in the HC on behalf of liquor manufacturers who had challenged the previous Act.

'Liquor business immoral, ban will improve society'
Some of the old provisions that would find place in the new law are penalising someone for allowing use of premises for a liquor-related offence, penalising a company and everyone in charge of its affairs if the offender is a company, and fining the owner of a house from where utensils meant for making liquor are found.

"Liquor consumption is a social stigma," the Bihar chief minister said, adding that prohibition would improve society. All previous excise laws, including the one quashed by the high court on Friday, "would be repealed with the enforcement of the new Act", he said. "People should go and see the post-prohibition peaceful environment in villages which earlier used to present a picture of chaos, especially in the evenings."

Women would then become victim of domestic violence. The poor used to spend almost three-fourth of their daily wages on liquor," he said. Kumar described the business of liquor as immoral and also refuted claims of loss of revenue due to prohibition.

"Prohibition is saving people's thousands of crores as they are not wasting it on alcohol. These savings will boost the economy of the state in the long run as people would invest it in businesses," he further said. Liquor traders and bar and club owners were readying to challenge the new Act.

"It's not only about our revenue. It's also the question of bread and butter for thousands of people who used to work in our bars and clubs. Many of them came to me after the court order on Friday, asking when they could join duty," said Bunty Kumar, a coowner of a closed bar on Fraser Road.