Tag: bihar liquor ban

Liquor ban: Over 200,000 cases pile-up, irked Patna HC raps Bihar govt.

Source – business-standard.com

Bihar government’s alcohol ban in the state may or may not have delivered desired results yet, but the move has put a huge burden on the judiciary.

The judiciary, already burdened with a large number of pending cases, has to now settle over 200,000 prohibition-related cases, including nearly 40,000 bail petitions pending with the Patna High Court.

The HC has asked Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government to explain the details of the infrastructure and mechanism it plans to develop to deal with mounting prohibition-related cases, according to a news report in The Times of India.

“In how many such cases has the state government appealed the high court’s order in the Supreme Court?,” a bench asked advocate general Lalit Kishore.

In reply, the advocate general said the state government had moved the SC on several occasions but he didn’t mention the number of cases.

The bench also sought to know what action the Bihar government has taken to pursue the cases filed in the SC challenging the enforcement of prohibition in the state.

Till date, 167,000 people have been arrested on charges of violating the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 and more than 5 lakh litres of alcohol have been seized, the report said.

2.7 Lakh Prohibition Cases Pending, High Court Asks Bihar For Plan

Source: ndtv.com

PATNA: More than three years after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rolled out an ambitious prohibition policy, its success remains a matter of debate. But one thing it has achieved is an alarmingly high pile of excise cases. Now, the Patna High Court has asked the state government to present a plan for how it plans to dispose these cases.

In a recent judgement, the court noted that the total number of such pending cases till July 8 this year is some 2.7 lakh.

In the absence of adequate judicial officers and support staff, the management of these cases is near impossible.

In an affidavit, the government has said that so far 67,000 people have been arrested and over 52 lakh litres of liquor has been seized. However, only 2,629 cases have been disposed of.

After the state government’s affidavit, the court has directed the Chief Secretary to file another about how the state hopes to tackle the problem of increased litigation.

The move is seen as one directed to draw attention to courts getting overburdened with excise and prohibition cases.

Bihar had banned country liquor from April 1, 2016 and prohibited the consumption of any alcohol six months later.

But at its peak, the law the led to an average of 172 arrests every day or one every 10 minutes.