HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Friday reserved orders in the petitions challenging GO. No. 87 (September 20) issued by the commissioner of prohibition & excise department conferring 15% of A4 retail liquor shops to Gouds, 10% to SCs and 5% to STs. Justice K. Lakshman was dealing with three writ petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the said GO and also GO. No. 98 (November 5) issuing notification laying down the policy for allotment of liquor shops. In the previous hearing, Justice Lakshman had directed the state government to explain the basis on which the government had fixed reservations.
On Friday, he asked “why is it 15% to Gouds, why not 5% or 20%, what is the rationale behind such allocation, what was the material placed before the Cabinet for taking such a decision?” Advocate general B.S. Prasad informed the Court that the Goud community is into toddy business and in the present scenario, toddy-tree numbers have come down drastically and liquor business is in proximity to toddy business. As part of welfare measures, the government has taken a decision to allocate 15% of liquor shops to Gouds as they are socially and economically backward”.
Further, he submitted that this was essentially a policy decision of the government and there is no constitutional embargo on this issue. The state cabinet is empowered to take such a decision.
He submitted that the government has amended some content of GO 87 and issued a new GO 100 on November 8, which enables the reservations. When the judge sought a copy of the GO copy, the advocate general replied the copy had not come out and he would submit it by Saturday morning. P.V. Ramana, counsel for one of the petitioners, submitted that the government has not conducted any exercise in collecting data pertaining to Gouds.
On the conclusion of arguments, the judge reserved orders.
