BIBHAS KUMAR DAS Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner questions the propriety of an order rejecting the petitioner's application for grant of a foreign liquor bar-cum-restaurant licence on the ground that the application should have been considered on the basis of the law as applicable as at the date of the application and not as at the date of consideration of the grant.

(2.) The application for the licence was made in the year 2006. At such time, inter alia, Rule 61 of the consolidated rules made under Section 85 of the Bengal Excise Act, 1909 governed the field; and the policy mandated a vicinity qualification. The application was not disposed of within a reasonable time, whereupon the petitioner carried WP No. 19892(W) of 2007 to this court, complaining that though a favourable enquiry report had been furnished by the excise authorities and the local panchayat samity in respect of the site chosen by the petitioner, the Collector had not taken a decision in such regard. That petition was allowed on November 23, 2007 by directing the District Magistrate and Collector, Purba Medinipur, "to dispose of the application in the light of enquiry report and in the light of the no objection by passing a reasoned order within a period of four weeks from the date of communication of this order." The Collector passed an order on January 14, 2008 observing, inter alia, that since the proposed bar was to be located on NH-41, the "approval may cause increase in drunken driving leading to accidents and loss of life." The Collector opined that there were several issues that had to be taken care of before the application for licence could be considered in right earnest and left the petitioner herein free to furnish the necessary information before the excise department for a comprehensive report to be prepared on the proposed site.

(3.) The processing of the papers took considerable time but it must be recognised that the petitioner did not challenge the qualified rejection of the application by the Collector's order of January 14, 2008. A second writ petition, WP No. 11649(W) of 2011, was filed complaining that "for undisclosed reasons the authority hearing (the petitioner's) application for excise licence in August 2010 has not yet given his decision." Such second petition was disposed of by an order of July 28, 2011 requiring the Collector to "hear the petitioner afresh and dispose of the application for excise licence within eight weeks from the date of communication of this order." In pursuance of the order passed on the second petition, the Collector passed an order on September 21, 2011 observing, inter alia, as follows: