ISLAMABAD: Ten different liquor shops again approached the Supreme Court on Friday against the March 2 Sindh High Court decision of sealing 120 liquor shops in Sindh.

The petitioners appealed to the apex court to immediately overturn the SHC order because being taxpayers by engaging in a lawful trade they were facing loss of livelihood.

In its order, the high court had held that 120 shops across the province were clearly engaged in illegal sale of wine and liquor without ensuring that it was sold to non-Muslims alone and that too in the prescribed quota, thus violating the prohibition rules and doing business contrary to the injunctions of the Hadd Order 1979.

The SHC had ordered the director general of excise and taxation to seal all the liquor shops in Sindh with immediate effect and asked the inspector general of police to ensure compliance in this regard. The court had given the Sindh government one month to evolve a mechanism in consultation with the stakeholders to ensure that only licensed liquor shops sold wine and liquor to non-Muslims within permissible quota as part of their religious ceremonies and maintained a record of sales which shall be available to the public.

The petition in the Supreme Court was jointly filed by Messrs Kohistan Wine Shop, Azad Wine Shop, Mehran Wine Shop, Arjun Wine Agency, Mazda Trading, Master Wine Shop, Sindh Wine Shop, Lucky and Company, Good Luck Wine Shop and Long Mal Wine Shop.

The petitioners through their counsel Asma Jahangir argued that they would suffer grave and irreparable financial loss if the high court order was not suspended.

Earlier, they had knocked at the doors of the apex court on Nov 14 last year. The Supreme Court had sent the case back to the SHC on Nov 23, asking the latter to decide the matter after providing opportunity to the aggrieved parties (liquor shops).

The fresh petition argued that PML-N lawmaker Ramesh Kumar Vankwani had in his plea in the SHC sought extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 199 of the Constitution, wherein he made vague allegations only to punish and harass the petitioners on a misdirected belief.

The petitioners said the high court had failed to notice that in case of violation of the Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order, 1979 by Muslims, the most effective and appropriate alternative remedy lay in filing an FIR under Section 3/4 of the Hadd Order.

Thus the high court erred by not granting time to the petitioners to produce the Notification No SO(EXCISE)EXT/2(5)/99 of Aug 30, 2006, passed by the excise and taxation department, in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 31 of the Hadd Order, the petition added.

Moreover, it said, Mr Vankwani was not an aggrieved or bona fide person to institute the petition before the high court. The SHC erred in law by granting final relief to Mr Vankwani at the interim stage, in the absence of any extraordinary circumstances, the petition said, adding that the licences granted to the petitioners under Article 17 of the Hadd Order could be cancelled on certain grounds.

It argued that the high court order had violated the petitioners’ fundamental rights under Article 10A of the Constitution since no due process was observed nor was any adequate opportunity of hearing provided to the petitioners.

The high court also erred in concluding that alcohol was being sold by the petitioners in violation of Article 17 of the Hadd Order without even examining sale records of the liquor shops, the petition argued.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2017