Kerala Bar Hotels Association challenges Abkari policy

Kochi: The Kerala Bar Hotels Association has filed a petition before the Kerala High Court challenging the new Abkari Policy against denial of renewal of FL3 licence to two-star hotels having a bar facility. According to the petition, they had two-star facilities specified by the state tourism department and had the bar facility in their hotels until March 31, 2014. Due to the cancellation of bar licences below Five-star category hotels by the UDF government in 2014, their two-star hotels were closed. Currently, the petitioners’ hotels are continuing with the ‘Beer and Wine’ facility in their hotels. 

The LDF government declared the new Abkari Policy granting a licence only to those hotels having valid three stars and above classification, leaving out hotels with two-star facilities. The present act of the government in denying the renewal facility to the few hotels in this category was highly discriminatory, the petitioners argued. They said that though they had represented to the government, no actions had been taken to redress their grievances.

According to them, the government while formulating the policy had ignored the one-man Commission report and its recommendation on granting FL-3 licences to hotels which have minimum 2-star facilities. None of the recommendations of the Commission found a place in the policy, the petitioners said.  The government had not conducted any study before formulating the new Abkari Policy in respect of the grant of FL3 licences to tourist hotels and the policy had been formulated without any application of mind, they contended.