Seeking deceased person’s liquor license after 22 years; HC says not acceptable

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A division bench of the High Court of Kar nataka has overturned a single-judge bench order granting the liquor business license of a person who died 22 years ago to his wife and children.

The division bench said that the delay alone was enough to dismiss the petition filed by the wife and children of one Jayashankar.

“The fact remains the petitioners were aware of their husband and father respectively carrying on the business of liquor during his lifetime and pleading and submission regarding their ignorance of the same and economic condition preventing them from approaching the Court for 22 long years cannot at any stretch of imagination be accepted as a justifiable explanation or reason,” the division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice MGS Kamal said in a recent judgement allowing appeals challenging the single judge order.

The wife of one Jayashankar J Rukhimini and her three children J Nagarjun, Ranjith and J Nagbharan had approached the HC claiming that Jayashankar, who died in 1997, held a CL-2 liquor license.

He had executed a power of attorney in favour of K Shivarame Gowda to look after it. The license was transferred to one KR Savitha a few months later which was then transferred to one K Manjunath.

They claimed that the three children being minors had no knowledge of the liquor business of their father and the mother was not worldly-wise. They learnt about Jayashankar’s ownership of the license after finding some documents in their house and approached the authorities seeking it to be transferred to them.

They alleged that it was transferred to Savitha and Manjunath fraudulently. The single judg e who had heard the petition had ordered for a police enquiry and found that someone impersonating Jayashankar after his death had transferred the license to Savitha.

The single judge therefore in his order in February 2021 ruled that the license be transferred to the wife and children of Jayashankar. This was challenged by Savitha and Manjunath before the Division Bench.

They claimed that SJayashankar who transferred the license to them was a different person and not the person claimed by Rukhmini and her children.

The HC however held that the investigation conducted into the alleged fraud in the transfer of license was without jurisdiction. The single judge could not have ordered for such an enquiry at all.

“The directions issued in the impugned order to conduct the inquiry that too based on a report submitted by the Assistant Commissioner, Police cannot be sustained as such an inquiry would be one without jurisdiction,” the bench said.

The HC however said that the wife and children of Jayashankar could pursue “legal remedy or options if any available to the petitioners before the competent courts of law forum or authority and the petitioners are at liberty to seek such remedy as may be permissible under law.”

(WA 1318/2022)