Venues serving liquor must initiate rigorous age verification protocols, says Karnataka High Court

Breweries and other establishments serving liquor, which have proliferated in urban spaces, must initiate rigorous age-verification protocols, be it through Aadhaar or other valid identification, at the threshold of entry, said the High Court of Karnataka.

The court said that another round of verification should follow when liquor is ordered by persons who appear youthful or underage.

Owners accountable

“When minors gain entry and order intoxicants, whether overtly served or covertly consumed, the management of such establishments cannot wash their hands off in indifference. The protection of youth is not merely a statutory mandate; it is a moral imperative. The managements of the places would be held accountable for any lapses,” the court noted.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna made these observations while refusing to quash a criminal case registered against V. Chitti Babu, a partner of Legacy Brewing Company, Rajarajeswarinagar, Bengaluru.

“The legislative intent is clear. A licensee having been entrusted with the privilege of dealing in intoxicants bears a corresponding and higher duty of vigilance. The law casts upon him, not merely an obligation to refrain from serving minors, but a duty to ensure that minors do not remain on the premises where intoxicants are sold or manufactured,” the court pointed out

Case background

The case was registered against the owners and staff of the brewing company under the provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act and the Karnataka Excise Act for allegedly allowing a few minor boys, aged around 15, to consume alcohol. This came after one of these boys, a class 10 student, died after falling from the seventh floor of a residential apartment, and alcohol was found in the boy’s body during the post-mortem.

The brewery management claimed that it cannot be held responsible while contending that it had served only food to those boys and liquor was carried in the bag surreptitiously into the brewery by the boys and they consumed it under the table.

The management further claimed that it is a brewing company where families come, and children would also accompany, but liquor is not served to persons below 18 years, and incident of death of a boy has not happened on account of serving of liquor in the brewery as the boys might have consumed more liquor outside.

Need investigation

As the CCTV camera footage established entry of the minor boys into the brewery, the court said that whether the boy, who died, and his friends had gone to the house directly or not, and whether those boys had bought their own liquor into the brewery are all matter of investigation.

The issue is how a boy of 15 years of age was allowed entry into the brewery, and he, having consumed alcohol, has gone unchecked, the court pointed out.

“Investigation, therefore, becomes imperative to ascertain how underage individuals gained entry without age verification; whether any mechanism existed to scrutinise identification of documents; whether supervisory safeguards were in place and whether statutory obligations cast upon the licensee were discharged with the vigilance the law demands,” the court observed.