UT government urged to implement Supreme Court order on liquor shops

Secretary of the Federation of People’s Rights G Sugumaran, who chaired the meeting, in a release later said that a resolution was adopted unanimously at the meeting exhorting the Puducherry government to ensure that the liquor shops on the highways here were closed by March 31 this year, which is the deadline set by the Apex court. 

Sugumaran also noted that the closure of the shops would be of help to save precious human lives as road accidents had been on the rise and majority of them were attributed to drunk driving. 

The shops on the highways should be wound up and the Puducherry government should not be lax in implementing the court order, he said. In case there was a delay in implementation, political parties and Tamil outfits would launch a massive agitation in the near future, he added. 

The Apex Court had on December 15, 2016, ordered a ban on all liquor shops on national as well as state highways across the country and made it clear that licenses of existing shops will not be renewed after March 31 this year.