RADHAMANI Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner in W.P.(C) No. 18913/2004 is the appellant. Admittedly she applied for an FL3 licence as per application dated 4.3.1992. That licence was meant for the year 1992-93. So eligibility has to be assessed with reference to that point of time. According to the appellant/petitioner, there was no such consideration. This resulted in an earlier Writ Petition. It was disposed of as per Ext.P1 judgment directing consideration of application. It seems that the appellant did not pursue the matter further. While so, there was some change in the Abkari Policy introduced w.e.f. 11.9.1992. This disabled the Government from granting further licence. Thereafter new Abkari Policies were drawn up every year, obviously because the licences granted were confined to a particular year. Necessarily, the renewal shall also be subject to the conditions contained in the new Abkari Policy and consequent amendment to the Abkari Rules. While so, in the year 2002, this Court pronounced a judgment in B.Six Holidays Resorts (P) Ltd. v. State of Kerala, 2002 (2) KLJ 941, on 16.7.2002 taking the view that an application, which ought to have been considered, should have been considered with reference to the Rules, restrictions and limitations then existing. Relying on this judgment, the appellant agitated further for grant of a licence. She made an application on 24.10.2002 pointing out her earlier application dated 4.3.1992 contending that, had she been given a licence in time or her application been considered with reference to the Rules available on 4.3.1992, she would have been granted a licence and that such licence would have been renewed from year to year based on the subsequent policy and therefore now she would have been eligible for a licence, notwithstanding the policy subsequently announced including the added proviso to Rule 13(3) of the Abkari Rules dealt with in B.Six Holidays Resorts's case. So she again approached this Court. Ext.P3 judgment was passed by this Court, directing consideration of her application dated 24.10.2002. It was rejected as per Ext.P14. Ext.P14 was under challenge in W.P.(C) No. 18913/2004.

(2.) The prime contention raised was that following the dictum in B.Six Holidays Resorts's case Government had granted licence to several applicants who made applications even earlier than the appellant, as is revealed by Exts.P12, and P15 to P17, including to respondents 4 and 5. When they were thus granted licence on the same ground urged by the appellant, denial of the licence to the appellant is discriminatory and is in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) Learned Single Judge considered the contentions and found that there was no reason to grant licence based on the dictum contained in B.Six Holidays Resorts's case not only in the case of the appellant/petitioner but also in the case of respondents 4 and 5 even. Learned Single Judge also found that there was some difference in the facts leading to the case of respondents 4 and 5.