BENGALURU: The state government will shortly commence the e-auctioning process of 569 lapsed and unused excise licences after getting the go-ahead from the Karnataka High Court. On April 15, a division bench set aside the November 2025 interim order of a single judge, who had stayed the amended rules to provide for the e-auction of unused Excise licences on a petition filed by Guruswamy and others.
“The Excise department will soon set the auction process in motion with a renewed time line. The department proposes to complete the auction and licence allocation process before July 1, which is the excise new year,” said sources on condition of anonymity. “The government is expecting to mop up around Rs 1,000 crore in revenue through the auction. A lot depends on how the bidding goes.
The market has been low. The price and monthly rental of old excise licences, which are in circulation, have come down in the last one year because of sluggish F&B business,” added sources.
Under the new classification, there are 92 CL-9A (earlier CL9) licences (bars & restaurants) and 477 are CL-2A (earlier CL-2 - rental shops and CL-11C- government-owned Mysore Sales International Limited -MSIL) licences that will go under the hammer. “A majority of licences, especially CL-9A, will be auctioned for Bengaluru city.
The rest will be auctioned for corporation areas like Mysuru, Mangalaru, Hubballi-Dharwad, Shivamogga, Belagavi and Davangere. Base bidding for the auction is likely to be pegged at Rs 1.5crore for licences in Bengaluru city. For other areas, it may be pegged between Rs 80 lakh and Rs 1 crore. The process of e-auction should be over by June-end,” sources said.
On November 3, 2025, the government had issued final notification on the amendment to the Karnataka Excise (General Conditions of Licences) Rules, 1967, Karnataka Excise (Lease of the Right of Retail Vend of Beer) Rules, 1976, and Karnataka Excise (Sale of Indian & Foreign Liquors) Rules, 1968, for e-auction of defunct/unused licences.
The amended rules are now called Second Amendment Rules, 2025, in the above three categories. Two new licence categories, CL-2A for CL2 (retail liquor shops) and CL-9A for CL-9 (bars & restaurants) were created for the unused licenses under consideration for auction.