Bengaluru: The axe has fallen. Pub City Bengaluru is all set to lose its bars and pubs on MG Road, Brigade Road and nearby areas with the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday dismissing a batch of petitions appealing for de-notification of highways passing through city limits.
The order has come as a major blow to restaurant and bar owners, whose fate was hanging in the balance since the Supreme Court banned the serving of liquor within 500 meters of national highways a few months ago. With M G Road and other central roads classified as highways, they were hoping the High Court would come to their rescue as the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has already turned down the state government's proposal to denotify the national highways within city and town limits.
"This is the end of hope for a lot of people as the Supreme Court too has made it clear it will not entertain individual petitions. Now the only option left for bar owners is to relocate to other areas, " said Mr Ashish Kothare, president of the Bar and Restaurant Owner's Association of Bengaluru and one of the petitioners.
Ashok Sadhwani, owner of the Pub World on Residency Road , said it had already shut down, badly impacting its employees.
Commenting on the High Court order, Joint Excise Commissioner, Rajendra Prasad explained that around 2,800 liquor shops would be impacted as there was no possibility now of renewing their licenses at their present locations. "However, the bar and pub owners can relocate," he pointed out.
With the Union transport ministry saying that none of these NH stretches qualified for 'deemed denotification' as per their policy, the High Court said that denotifying these stretches "would tantamount to permitting isolated discontinuities in NH corridors scattered over the NH network within the state; this would not serve the very objective of having NHs." The HC in its judgement has said that it cannot interfere in the issue now. "If there was no legal requirement for the State Government to approach the Union of India in terms of the provisions of the National Highways Act, 1956, the State of Karnataka would not have so approached the Ministry of Transport of Union of India for this purpose.
