DEVI LAL Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) COMMON questions of fact and law arise in these two writ petitions, as such they are being disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) SELLING of intoxicants has always been considered as a business attended with danger to the community. To mitigate this evil the State in exercise of its police power have been regulating the business. The State possesses the right of complete control over all respects of intoxicants viz. , manufacture, collection, sale and consumption. The reasons are obvious-public morality, public interest, harmful and dangerous effect on the edict, loss of hard earned money of the undiscerning and in provident common man and thereby lowering his standard of living, driving him into the cronic state of indebtedness and eventually disrupt the peace and happiness of his humble home.

(3.) AS regards the cancellation of the licenses being violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India, it would suffice to say that there is no fundamental right to trade or business in intoxicant. The State under its regulatory power, has a right to prohibit absolutely every form of activity in relation to intoxicants its manufacture, storage, export, import, sale and posses don. In all their manifestations these rights are vested in the State. The power of control is an extent of the societies right to self protection and it rests upon the right of the State to care for the health, morals and wel fare of the people. In Sheoshankar vs. State Government of Madhya Pradesh (3) Hidayatullah J as he then was, speaking for the Court observed that the C. P. and Berar Prohibition Act, 1938 did not violate Article 19 (1) (f) of the Constitution, because the Legislature having come to the conclusion that the consumption of intoxicating liquor was not in public interest, intoxicating liquor must be regarded as noxious object and it ceased to be a legitimate object of 'property' or of Commerce' for what had been rendered contraband could not be the object of property. In this case the Court cited with approval American decision which fully established this proposition. The ratio decidendi of this case squarely applies to the facts of the cases on hand. In Cooverjee B Bharucha vs. Excise Commissioner and the Chief Commissioner, Ajmer (4) the Supreme Court of India concurred with the observations in Crowley vs. Christensen (5) Those observations indicate that the sale of liquor has been at all times considered as the proper subject of Legislative regulation. A license may he exacted and restrictions may be imposed as to sale of liquor. There may be absolute prohibition of sale of liquor. Thus Cooverjee's case (supra) negatives the contention of the petitioners regarding their inherent right to carry on trade in intoxicating liquor.