JUDGMENT :

Vikramajit Sen, J.

1. These Appeals call into question the legal correctness of the Judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala dated 31.3.2015 by which several Writ Appeals filed by some of the Writ Petitioners assailing the Judgment of the learned Single Judge came to be dismissed and the Writ Appeals filed by the State came to be allowed. The writ petitioners, which include hotels which have been classified as Two Star, Three Star, Four Star and Heritage hotels, challenged the Abkari Policy for the year 2014-15 as well as the amendments to the Foreign Liquor Rules. While dismissing the writ petitions, the learned Single Judge carved out an exception vis-a-vis the eligibility of Four Star and Heritage category hotels to the grant of FL-3 licence, finding their exclusion to be arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. This holding resulted in the filing of appeals on behalf of the State. The impugned Judgment has reversed this conclusion of the learned Single Judge and consequently only Five Star hotels in the State of Kerala are pres