Tipsy Laws on Storing Liquor at Home
If government law enforcement agencies go by the books, a good number of upper middle class & influential people of Delhi will be behind bars for possessing more liquor than the permissible limit.
In a chance raid by a law enforcement agency at the residence of a person living in one of the posh localities of Delhi led to a chance discovery of a huge ‘catch.’ They found a private pub, having a rich collection of foreign and Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), which was beyond the permissible limit of individual possession in Delhi.
The agency concerned called in the Excise Officials who in turn alerted the local police station. The local police registered an FIR under section 33
(1) (f) of the Delhi Excise Act, 2009 for possession of intoxicants. This, they claimed was beyond the prescribed quantity which is given in Rule 20 of
The Delhi Excise Rules, 2010.
The innocuous grand collection and display of various liquor bottles in the private bar inside one’s house has left that person high and dry as he
is now facing prosecution and faces a possibility of conviction and a minimum period of imprisonment of six months which may extend to three years with fine. The fine may range between a minimum of Rs. 50,000 which may extend to Rs.1 lakh.
The Indian laws concerning the limit for individual possession of liquor at home are very complex and varied and there is no uniformity across the country in this regard. This is also because of the fact that alcohol is a subject in the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India, meaning thereby that each state has legislative power to legislate and enact its own laws, policies, rules and regulation inter alia allowing or restricting the production, trade, possession, etc. of liquor.
