K M ABRAHAM Vs. ASST EXCISE COMMISSIONER THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appeal admitted. Notice made returnable forthwith. Respondents waive service through the Government Pleader. By consent appeal called out for hearing and heard.

(2.) This appeal impugns the order of the learned Single Judge dated 16.10.2000 dismissing the Original petition. The appellant is the original petitioner who held an FL-3 licence upto 31.3.1988. The licence lapsed thereafter as he did not have the financial facility to bring the hotel upto the required star standard and renew the licence further. Thus, the bar of the appellant remained defunct from 1988-89 onwards. On 25.12.1995, the appellant made an application, Ext.P2 for renewal of the FL-3 licence and to shift the bar to another location in the same city. Nothing happened thereafter till he moved this Court in O.P. No. 31766 of 1999. Pursuant to a direction made thereinm the Excise commissioner considered the application of the appellant and rejected the same by order dated 17.3.2000 (Ext.P4). Being aggrieved thereby, the petitioner preferred O.P. No. 10403 of 2000 which has been dismissed by the impugned order of the learned single judge. Hence, the petitioner has come up in appeal.

(3.) The learned counsel for the appellant placed reliance on Rule 14 of the Foreign Liquor Rules (hereinafter referred to as "the Rules") which reads as under: