NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court, on January 9, will hear a plea seeking SIT probe into the Bihar Hooch tragedy that claimed at least 70 lives in the Saran district earlier this month.
Advocate Pawan Prakash Pathak for Aryavarta Mahasabha Foundation urged the bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha to list the plea. "It will come up next Monday," CJI DY Chandrachud remarked.
The plea had also sought the formulation of an action plan to curb the manufacturing, trading and sale of illicit liquor and adequate compensation to the victims' families.
It was argued in the plea that there is a need for a multi-pronged plan for the prevention and sale of spurious liquor. "With political parties training their guns on each other, as many as 40 people have died so far after consuming spurious liquor, while others have been hospitalised and there is no official report on the incident," the plea stated.
It was further argued that the Bihar Tragedy had caused a furore in the country.
Aryavarta Mahasabha Foundation in the petition has stated hooch is a kind of liquor which is cheap, brewed in small unregulated shanties and does not attract excise tax. "This inferior quality drink is usually made after mixing chemicals with water, which is then consumed by people," the petition further added while contending that such liquor is more commonly sold in states that have imposed a full ban on liquor.
It further stated, "Ever since the Bihar government prohibited liquor sale in the state in 2016, it has invited scathing criticism for its substantial failure to enforce the ban and for several adverse consequences that the move has thrust on the people there."