The State of Tamil Nadu rep. by Sec. & Ors. v. K. Balu and Anr.
Background
On 15 December 2016, the Supreme Court had delivered a landmark judgment directing all states and union territories to stop granting liquor licences along national and state highways and within 500 metres of them, to curb drunken driving, with existing licences to be phased out by 1 April 2017. Several states (including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Sikkim, Meghalaya and others), along with liquor-trade associations and individual licensees, filed interlocutory applications asking the Court to modify, clarify, or soften various aspects of those directions, arguing things like loss of revenue, varying state excise years, hilly terrain, and small-town geography.
Decision Breakdown
The Court rejected the core challenge, led by the Attorney General for Tamil Nadu, that the 500-metre rule exceeded the Court's constitutional powers or amounted to judicial policy-making, holding that no one has a fundamental right to a liquor licence and that the directions were firmly grounded in Union government policy, road-safety data, and the Motor Vehicles Act. However, it granted three specific, targeted modifications: (i) in local areas with a population of 20,000 or less, the 500-metre buffer was reduced to 220 metres; (ii) the 1 April 2017 cut-off for expiring licences was extended to 30 September 2017 for states whose excise year ends later in the year; and (iii) Sikkim and Meghalaya were exempted from the 500-metre distance requirement given their hilly/forested terrain. Tamil Nadu's own request for further extension was refused since it had already been given time in the original judgment. The Court disposed of the entire batch of applications, the underlying civil appeal, a connected review petition, and a related contempt petition, all in terms of this order read together with the 15 December 2016 judgment.
Lesson Learnt
Even a sweeping nationwide court-ordered policy direction can be fine-tuned for genuine local hardships (small towns, difficult terrain, differing administrative calendars) without diluting its core public-safety objective: courts can calibrate implementation without abandoning the underlying principle, and no trade (such as the sale of liquor, which is not a fundamental right) can claim an exemption simply on grounds of revenue loss.