Daman liquor sellers refused protection from Gujarat cops

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL filed by an association of liquor merchants from the Union territory of Daman seeking its intervention in stopping Gujarat police action against them under Gujarat’s prohibition laws when liquor sold by them is caught in Gujarat.
The bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee termed the PIL “misconceived” when Daman Wine Merchants’ Association complained that its members are booked for selling liquor in Maharashtra.While refusing to intervene, the judge said, “What can we do if you are entering their area (Gujarat police’s territory)? If you are selling liquor in Maharashtra, nobody is going to touch you. But you are coming to their territory (Gujarat)...you are named in the FIR that you are supplying liquor in the state of Gujarat. That is why they (Gujarat police) are going to your territory.”
The petitioner’s advocate, Dhruvin Mehta, urged the HC to restrain Gujarat police from taking coercive action against the liquor vendors of Daman under the Gujarat Prohibition Act. He asserted that the implication of the wine shop owners from Daman, which is a Union territory with no liquor prohibition policy, is harassment by Gujarat police.
The HC rejected the demand for such a blanket ban and said, “We fail to understand why the petitioners who have no concern with the state of Gujarat would be implicated for illegally selling liquor in the state of Gujarat and cases under the Prohibition Act would be registered against them.”
The judges on Monday, while refusing to intervene in the matter of the attack on foreign students at Gujarat University, had made it clear that petitioners should not make the court an investigating agency.
“This is the job of the investigating agency. They will do it perfectly. And if there is any mistake in the FIR or chargesheet, you can seek quashing of FIR and chargesheet. You can get a stay on trial. All remedies at every stage are available to you. Why would we interfere? This is the legal process of law. We are not supposed to interfere in the process of law and should not take it in our hands. We are courts of law,” the CJ had told the petitioner’s advocate.