A vacation bench of the Madras High Court today directed the Puducherry government to ban the sale of liquor from 10.00 p.m on December 31 to 1.00 a.m January 1st in view of the Omicron virus threat.
Passing orders on a petition filed by a TVK functionary challenging the new year celebrations in the Union Territory in the wake of positive cases of Omicron variant, the Division Bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and D Bharatha Chakravarthy directed the Puducherry government to stop the sale of liquor for three hours.
In a public interest litigation, Madras High Court has asked the Union Territory of Puducherry to temporarily ban the supply of alcohol from 10 PM on New Year's Eve till 1 AM on 1st January.
“There shall be no sale of alcohol from 10 pm on December 31 to 1 am on January 1 in bars and bars attached to hotels or any other places where alcohol is supplied,” the bench ordered.
While stating that there was no ban on New year celebrations, the court said that those who had not taken two vaccine jabs should not be allowed to celebrate it in public and that they could celebrate it privately.
"Prevention is better than cure", the court said while clarifying the reasons behind such a restriction.
The Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi (TVK)’s Puducherry state organiser S Sridhar has filed a public interest litigation in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Puducherry government to ban the New Year celebrations here in view of the Omicron threat after two cases were detected in the Union territory.
Meanwhile, the Puducherry health department has instructed all the hotels, malls, restaurants, cinema theatre owners to only allow individuals who are fully vaccinated against Covid to enter their premises for New Year celebrations.
In the neighbouring Tamil Nadu and other states including Karnataka and Kerala, New Year celebrations have been banned in public places. These states have imposed various other restrictions to prevent the spread of the variant.
(with inputs from sources)
