Highway liquor vend restrictions upheld to protect road safety, extend through local limits, and prevent evasion by proximity.

Road safety and protection of human life were treated as paramount, and liquor vends on national and state highways were prohibited because easy access to alcohol was seen as increasing the risk of drunken driving. No distinction was accepted between highway stretches inside municipal or local limits and other stretches, as such an exception would undermine the policy and offend equality principles. Existing renewed licences were allowed to continue only until expiry and in any event not beyond 1 April 2017. Liquor shops were also required to remain non-visible, non-accessible and outside the prescribed distance from the highway edge or service lane, with signages and advertisements barred.

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Issues: Whether liquor vends can be permitted on national and state highways; whether the prohibition can extend to stretches of highways passing through municipal or local limits; whether existing licences may be allowed to continue for a limited period; and whether liquor vends must be kept invisible, inaccessible and beyond a prescribed distance from the highways.

Issue (i): Whether liquor vends can be permitted on national and state highways.

Analysis: The judgment treated road safety and protection of human life as paramount. It accepted the Union policy, supported by accident statistics and expert advice, that liquor vends on highways create easy access to alcohol and increase the risk of drunken driving. It also relied on the principle that there is no fundamental right to trade in liquor and that liquor is res extra commercium. The Court held that the power of the States to grant licences cannot be exercised in a manner that endangers users of national and state highways.

Conclusion: No licences for liquor shops are to be granted on national or state highways.

Issue (ii): Whether the prohibition can extend to stretches of highways passing through municipal or local limits.

Analysis: The judgment rejected any distinction between highways passing through urban or local authority limits and other stretches of highways. It held that an exception for such stretches would defeat the very object of the policy, be arbitrary, and violate equality principles because the danger to road users remains the same.

Conclusion: The prohibition extends to highway stretches within municipal, city, town or local authority limits.

Issue (iii): Whether existing licences may be allowed to continue for a limited period.

Analysis: The Court acknowledged practical difficulties and possible financial consequences from immediate termination of renewed licences. Balancing public safety with those difficulties, it permitted existing renewed licences to continue only for the unexpired term and in any event not beyond a fixed cut-off date.

Conclusion: Existing renewed licences may continue only until expiry and not later than 1 April 2017.

Issue (iv): Whether liquor vends must be kept invisible, inaccessible and beyond a prescribed distance from the highways.

Analysis: The judgment found that the policy would be ineffective if shops could be placed in close proximity to highways while being camouflaged or made indirectly available through signage or rear access. To prevent evasion, it required that liquor vends not be visible or directly accessible from highways and that they remain beyond the stipulated distance from the outer edge of the highway or service lane.

Conclusion: Signages and advertisements are prohibited and liquor shops must not be visible, directly accessible, or situated within 500 metres of the highway edge or service lane.

Final Conclusion: The appeals and transfer petitions were disposed of by upholding a nationwide restriction on liquor vends along national and state highways, subject to the limited continuation of existing licences until the specified date.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the sale of liquor on or near highways poses a demonstrable risk to road safety and human life, the State's licensing power must yield to the constitutional obligation to protect public health and life, and no distinction can be drawn between national and state highways for that purpose.

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