V M Sudheeran asks Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to step down
The Supreme Court had banned the sale of liquor within 500 metres of national and state highways across the country.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran has shot off a letter to Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi asking him to step down, for acting at the "behest of a few bar hotel owners" in the state. The Supreme Court had banned the sale of liquor within 500 metres of national and state highways across the country. But Mr Rohatgi advised the state government that bar hotels and beer-wine parlours can remain there.
"As your good-self is well aware, even while holding the esteemed office of the Attorney General of India, your good-self has appeared for a bar hotel owner in a case challenging the erstwhile Kerala government's liquor policy to reduce the availability of liquor in the state,” the five-page letter says. He also claimed that as the AG, whose duty includes to advise the Union government and the state governments, he should not have appeared for a bar hotel owners to challenge the policy of a state government.
“Such appearance was neither fair nor ethical. I am pained to say that your above-said conduct was not correct - legally, constitutionally, ethically or politically. At any rate, having done so, it is all the more painful to see that you have again advised the state government with respect to a judgment, with an instruction which has the effect of flouting the very purpose of the judgment,” he added.