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Retail IMFL vendors challenge pro-coops. GO

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI FEB. 10. In a fresh round of litigation, a group of retail IMFL vendors has moved the Madras High Court challenging certain preferential clauses in a February 1 government order granting about 1,500 liquor vending licences to cooperative societies and the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation.

Justice P. Sathasivam ordered notices to the Government, returnable in a week, on the petitions which contended that the order was discriminatory, permitting cooperative societies and TNCSC outlets to remit the privilege fee in seven monthly instalments, whereas private vendors were mandated to pay the entire amount in one lumpsum.

Another questionable feature of the GO, according to the petitioners, was that a shop notified in panchayat areas could be renotified and relocated by the Government whenever it deemed it necessary. If such relocation was permitted, business of the existing outlets would be affected, they added. Also, the societies and the TNCSC were permitted to run the IMFL shops even without any working capital and without paying any privilege amount. Instead, they had been permitted to avail themselves of the cash credit facility from the central cooperative banks concerned. Describing this as `compulsion', the petitioners said the move directly violated the provisions of Rule 3 of the TN Liquor (retail vending) Rules, which stated the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation or cooperative societies or the TNCSC interested in retail vending should apply to the licensing authority. While these vendors were given cash discount by the TASMAC, the private outlets did not get such a facility.

Though Rule 5 of the Rules stipulated that nomination of cooperative societies or TNCSC outlets for liquor vending could be done only after the unsold shops remained without being taken in successive lots, the Government directly nominated the shops, the petitioners maintained.

They pleaded for quashing the GO, and as interim relief prayed for a stay on its operation.

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