New Delhi : The Supreme Court has given a virtual breather of three months to the states like Maharashtra, Goa, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal renaming their state highways as ‘district roads’ to escape the Supreme Court’s ban on the sale of liquor within 500 metres of the highways.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar on Thursday refused an urgent hearing on the petition of NGO ‘Arrive Safe’ of Harman Singh Sidhu (46) whose petition among many led the Apex Court to ban the liquor sale along the national and state highways from Saturday.
The NGO had moved the Supreme Court after the Punjab and Haryana High Court refused to entertain his petition challenging the Chandigarh administration declaring all six state highways connecting the city as the district roads.
The petition sought an intervention of the Apex Court to stay all notifications by the state governments declaring the state highways as district roads to circumvent its two orders of December 15 and March 31 banning the liquor sale on the highways.
The CJI told the NGO’s lawyer why to worry if they redesignate any highways as district roads without realising the repercussions.
They would lose and starve for the central funds as all state highways are funded by the Centre, he noted.
