The Madras High Court has refused to interfere with a policy decision taken by the Tamil Nadu government to close down 500 retail liquor shops run by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem and Tiruchi regions.
Justice Krishnan Ramasamy held that the court could not interfere with such a policy decision especially at the instance of property owners who had let out their premises to Tasmac, since the relationship between them was just that of a landlord and tenant.
The judge dismissed a batch of writ petitions which sought to quash the closure orders passed by Tasmac, and to issue a consequent direction to the corporation to continue to run the shops. The petitioners had claimed that they would incur huge losses due to this sudden closure.
On the other hand, Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran questioned the very locus standi of the writ petitioners to question a policy decision of the government. He said, the landlords could not file writ petitions before the High Court to vent their grievances.
Concurring with him, the judge wrote: “This court is of the considered view that the relationship between the parties is only that of landlord-tenant whereby the tenant is entitled to take a decision to close their business. If any owner is aggrieved by such decision, the remedy is to approach the appropriate forum.”
He, however, gave liberty to the writ petitioners to make representations to the State government venting their grievances and said, it would be up to the authorities concerned to deal with such representations in accordance with the law.
