New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Centre on a plea for implementing a robust policy for establishing a mandatory age verification system at all points of alcohol sale.
The matter came up before a bench comprising BR Gavai and KV Vishwanathan. The PIL was filed by Delhi-based Community Against Drunken Driving (CADD), a non-governmental organisation, that has been working for 23 years to prevent alcohol-related tragedies. The PIL said as per research and statistics collected by the petitioner's organisation, drunken driving is the cause of more than 70 per cent of road accidents, resulting in more than 1,00,000 road deaths annually across the country.
The plea stressed that the right to consume alcohol cannot be treated as a fundamental right. The plea said as under Article 47 of the Constitution of India, “The state owes a duty to endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs, which are injurious to health would remain not only a distant dream, but a dead letter”.
The apex court issued a notice to the Centre on the PIL. The plea also sought the creation of a uniform framework for alcohol regulation across states and reducing and preventing the increasing menace of drunken driving. The petitioner was represented by senior advocate PB Suresh and advocate Vipin Nair.
The petition highlights the stark disparity in legal drinking age across different states in India. The petition said while Goa permits alcohol consumption from the age of 18, Delhi maintains a higher threshold at 25 years. It added that this variation extends to other states as well - Maharashtra prescribes 25 years, while Karnataka and Tamil Nadu allow drinking at 18.
The petitioner also drew attention to the correlation between underage drinking and criminal behaviour. According to studies cited in the PIL, early alcohol exposure significantly increases the risk of violent offences including robbery, sexual assault, and homicide.
The petition also highlighted the recent Pune car accident case where the lives of two young individuals were taken away by a minor driving under the influence of alcohol. The plea contended that none of the bars, pubs, restaurants, alcohol vendors, etc. maintains any records of the people consuming or buying alcohol, and no identity or age proof is ever asked for when alcohol is served. “The consequence of this is that people below the legal drinking age, are being served alcohol without age checks, and often, these inebriated individuals cause serious accidents, often seriously impairing people or resulting in deaths”, said the plea.
The petition emphasises that approximately 42.3% of boys in the age group of 18-25 years had their first alcoholic drink before turning 18, and 90% of them could freely procure alcohol from vendors without any age verification.
The petition said: “The conviction rate for drunken driving remains negligible. The offence of drunken driving is bailable, the offenders are almost immediately released on bail. To compound matters, underage drunk driving is now not an uncommon phenomenon. Incidents of underage drunk driving have also been widely covered by the press”.
The plea said there is no legal framework or concrete mechanism for checking/verifying the age of an individual who either buys alcohol from a bar/pub/restaurant or directly from the liquor shop. “In the absence of the same, it has resulted in a vacuum which is being rampantly misused by alcohol vendors and people who buy directly from liquor shops all over the country. This has resulted in numerous fatal accidents involving minors driving, under the influence of alcohol”, said the plea.
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