It is 84 years since the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, 1937, was enacted. Yet, prohibition, as on date, is not a reality. On the contrary, the sale of liquor by the government, through 5,358 retail outlets, has turned out to be the most lucrative source of revenue, the Madras High Court has lamented.
Justice Anita Sumanth expressed her anguish while quashing a tender notification issued by Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) on August 2, 2022, inviting bids for selling eatables at the bars attached to its retail liquor shops and also to collect empty liquor bottles from there.
The judge held that the tender conditions imposed by Tasmac, which holds the exclusive privilege, “if one may call it so,” for wholesale as well as retail sale of liquor in the State, would only lead to undesirable practices and corruption and therefore, the government could not facilitate such a process.
