Judgment :-

A.K. Sikri, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The appellant herein is a proprietor of a Hotel and Restaurant under the name and style of “BHIMSAIN VAISHNAV’ which is being run since 1954. On 28th August 1992, he made an application before the Collector of Excise, Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) for issuance of license to operate foreign liquor bar and restaurant. This application, for the reasons not available on record, kept pending for number of years. Thereafter, on 1.11.2004 he made a request that his earlier application dated 28th August 1992 may be processed and he be granted foreign liquor bar and restaurant license. It was followed by another reminder dated 8.9.2005. Thereafter, the appellant was given temporary license to run the liquor bar in January 2006, purportedly on the basis of his application submitted in the year 1992.

3. Respondent Nos. 5 and 6 herein, namely, Muslim Khawateem Khilafat Tanzeem, a Society and Nazia Elahi Khan, President of the said society respectively, filed a Writ Petition as Public Interest Litigation, with the prayers to cancel, rescind and revoke the aforesaid temporary license issued to the appellant. The plea raised was that it was not open f