The government’s decision to issue liquor store licences using a lottery mechanism was affirmed by the Orissa high court. It stated that while auction is one of the options for allocating licences, it is not always the best one. A slew of petitions challenging the lottery method implemented this year were dismissed by the court.
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The optimal way of calculating the amount to be paid, according to a division bench comprising chief justice S Muralidhar and judge BP Routray, is best left to the government.
Licensing for 1,156 Indian-Made Foreign Liquor Shops and 240 country liquor shops was done using a lottery method. To enter the lottery, an applicant must pay a non-refundable application fee of Rs. 1 lakh over the internet.
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For the 1,297 five-year licences, the state administration got 19,416 applications. The petitioners claimed that the Odisha Excise Act does not allow for the lottery method to be implemented.
