Cuttack, April 20: The Odisha government’s revised notification for introduction of e-auction mechanism to settle retail Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) off-shops and country liquor shops has come under judicial scrutiny.

Orissa High Court has fixed April 24 for hearing on a petition seeking quashing of the revised notification along with the counter affidavit of the Odisha government.

The Odisha government had first issued a notification for it on February 28, 2013. The notification was withdrawn on March 18 citing “procedural errors”.

Subsequently, a revised notification was issued on April 5. Priyabrata Mohanty, an IMFL off-shop licensee at Gop in Puri district, filed the writ petition.

“The Odisha government is expected to file a counter affidavit by April 23. The commissioner-cum-secretary of the excise department and the excise commissioner have been issued notices accordingly,” petitioner counsel Madhusudan Panda told The Telegraph.

The petition wanted the government’s decision to hold e-auction to be set aside on the ground that it stipulated “arbitrary” and “stringent conditions” that deprived small liquor traders or licensees from taking part in the new procedure.

“There was no monetary ceiling on solvency from 1968 to 2005. It was only in 2005 that a three-month consideration money was prescribed as a solvency amount to take part in the settlement of a shop. But now, up-to-date solvency certificate in respect of immovable property equal to not less than 12 times of the combined monthly reserve price of the shop is expected from a bidder,” the petition said.

In another development, replying to another petition challenging the State Excise Policy for 2013-14, the Odisha government has admitted that it is not equipped to adopt the e-auction process for out-still liquor (brew prepared from Mahua flower) shops from 2013-14 along with IMFL and country liquor shops.

As many as 32 IMFL off-shop licensees had filed the petition in the high court. In an affidavit, the additional secretary of the Odisha excise department Harekrushna Behera said: “It is too difficult to adopt the e-auction process during 2013-14 for both IMFL off-shops and country spirit shops. It may create a bottleneck. Therefore, the government has decided to implement the e-auction process in a phased manner and the process will be extended to out-still liquor shops.”

At present, out-still liquor shops exist in 21 of the 30 districts in Odisha. “The government has decided to adopt the e-auction process for all the out-still liquor shops existing in Odisha from 2014-15,” Behera said in his affidavit.

The excise policy for 2013-14 laid down that the existing IMFL off-shops would be granted extension of two months for April and May on payment of a non-refundable Rs 35,000 to facilitate completion of e-auction. The same policy was laid down for country spirit shops too.

The petitioners sought quashing of the excise policy for 2013-14, alleging that the policy was “whimsical’, “arbitrary” and “illegal”.