The Bihar government has decided to bring in fresh amendments to the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 in the coming Assembly session, apparently to cut down arrests under the stringent law and “unclog the court cases”.
On March 8, a team of officials from Rajasthan visited Bihar to study the impact of total prohibition and had an hour-long meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. While hearing a petition the same day, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.M. Sundresh, asked the Bihar government to place before the court the social and legislative impact of the liquor law and to collect data on the number of prosecutions under the Act.
While referring to the increase in number of cases in lower courts and the Patna High Court after the law was passed and which had put additional workload on the already overburdened judiciary, the court said the government should have thought about the fallout of its policy decision before bringing in law. The Bench further said the State had to look into all aspects before bringing these kinds of laws, and fixed it for further hearing in May first week.
