The Bihar government on Monday announced it has decided not to arrest liquor consumers if they reveal the name of sellers. Commissioner, Liquor Prohibition, Krishna Kumar, said that the fresh initiative is effective from now onwards.
"We have amended the current law that comes under liquor prohibition law with the actual idea to initiate a crackdown on the big fish (liquor mafia). We want to crack the nexus of illegal manufacturers, smugglers, transporters, and traders of liquor in Bihar. Consuming liquor is a social evil and the individual violator should be given a chance to rectify his/her bad habits," Krishna Kumar said.
"The liquor prohibition law came into effect in April 2016 and we have witnessed a large number of persons being arrested in a drunken state in Bihar. At present, over 4.5 lakh people lodged in jail for over 4 years only for consuming liquor," he added.
The Bihar government is facing criticism of ill-planned implementation of its liquor ban. Even Chief Justice of India NV Ramana criticised the Nitish Kumar government for implementing the same without considering a ground study and its aftermath. He said that the decisions like liquor ban in 2016 "put a huge burden on courts. It was a short-sighted decision of the Bihar government".
Ramana pointed out that every policy needs to be addressed with futuristic planning, its evaluation, and constitutionality before its implementation on ground. Due to the liquor ban decision of Nitish Kumar government in 2016, a large number of cases are pending in the courts, and even a bail hearing in simple cases is taking one year time in the courts, he had said.
Bihar government officials admit that due to the arrest of liquor drinkers in large numbers, the jails of the state are becoming overcrowded.
Sources have said that the officials of Bihar are under huge pressure from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who is currently carrying out his "Samaj Sudhar Abhiyan (Social Reform Campaign)" in Bihar.
The new condition-based initiative is a prime example of it as officials are working in desperation to make this ambitious liquor ban policy of Nitish Kumar to get successful on the ground at any cost.
"After an individual drunk violator is caught, if he/she reveals the name of the seller, he should not be arrested by police. In case, the seller is not arrested with liquor or the charge levelled by the consumer would not be proved, the individual customers would have to go to jail," Krishna Kumar said.
However, such a condition-based initiative may not be successful as threat always looms on the head of that consumer if he reveals the name of liquor mafia. The other loophole of the initiative is police on the ground. In many cases, police are either suspended, sent on line or even terminated for the jobs after their alleged links established with the liquor mafia.
Hence, if a consumer reveals the name of the mafia before the police, the chances of passing the information from the police station to liquor mafia cannot be ruled out. In that case, if the liquor mafia flees the spot or shifts the liquor to somewhere else before the arrival of police, it would be life-threatening to the consumers.
(With inputs from IANS)
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