The High Court has sought a reply from the Excise Department regarding the matter.
Kanpur:
A five-year-old student has approached the Allahabad High Court over a liquor shop near his school in Kanpur. In the PIL filed through his father, the student said the shop was “impacting the daily lives of his fellow students and residents living nearby”.
The child’s lawyer argued that the license renewal of the liquor store that occurred after the establishment of the school was “illegitimate”.
Petitioner Atharva is a Kindergarten student at Seth MR Jaipuria School, Azad Nagar. Atharva, through his lawyer father Prasun Dixit, has named the Chief Secretary of the Excise Department, Excise Commissioner of Lucknow, DM (Licensing Authority) Kanpur Nagar, Excise Officer Kanpur and liquor shop operator Gyanendra Kumar in the petition.
The petition also alleged that the shop was “notorious as a meeting place for anti-social persons”. It says, “Everyone sees drunkards roaming around their school and talking foul language.”
The petitioner reportedly told his father about the situation when it “became unbearable”.
During the hearing yesterday, the High Court sought answers from the Excise Department regarding this matter. The court has raised the question as to how the department renewed the license when the school was already operating.
The school, which runs classes from Kindergarten to Class 9, has approximately 475 students.
The petitioner’s father Prasun Dixit had earlier filed a complaint on this issue on the Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS Portal) – an integrated system for grievance redressal in Uttar Pradesh. Then the excise department replied that the shop is about 20 to 30 meters away from the school premises. The reply also mentioned that the shop has been running for the last 30 years, while the school was established in 2019.
The Lucknow bench of the court, citing an order of the Supreme Court, said that ‘No shop should be allowed to run within a radius of 100 meters from the entrance of any place of worship, school, hospital, factory or market or residential colony. Should go.’ ,
The next hearing of the case will be on March 13. Meanwhile, the market of discussions regarding this matter is hot in the entire city.
With inputs from Arun Aggarwal.
