Court stays allocation of liquor outlets in Gurgaon

Gurgaon: A local court has directed authorities here to not open the tender forms of licences for allocation of 174 Indian Made Foreign Liquor shops till March 11 following a complaint that an application for it was rejected on "flimsy ground".

Civil Judge (Senior Division) Joginder Singh yesterday directed Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner P C Meena and District Excise and Taxation Commissioner (DETC) Aruna Singh not to continue with the process of allocating the liquor shops till the next hearing on March 11. Plaintiff Yashwant Gupta`s counsel R N Yadav argued that the application of his client, who is an existing liquor vendor holder was not accepted by the DETC on "flimsy ground". "It was manipulated game of DETC in collusion with liquor mafias to create hurdles at its office so that the successful bidder could not be presented from submitting their tender forms and this was a design to cause benefits to the persons whom the DETC wants to favour," Yadav argued. "He (plaintiff) would suffer ir-reparable loss and would be deprived of his valuable right and he had also every right to bid and participate in it", the court said while issuing the order. Meena said that the legal process would be followed as per the order of the court. The tender forms for 174 liquor outlets, which are to be alloted for the next two years (2013-14 and 2014-15) was to be opened today, officials said. Gupta alleged that out of 174 liquor shops in the district, DETC had received only one tender bid for 60 shops, two bids for 42 shops, none bid for 3 shops while 69 shops received multiple tender bids. These 60 liquor shops which have received only one bid are located at different prime locations in Gurgaon and department of DETC wants to oblige their favoured parties, he alleged. After getting licence for this year, a liquor vendor holder would pay 5 per cent extra amount of this year`s bid and continue running the outlet in 2014-15, he claimed. PTI