Do the Abkari Act and the Rules made thereunder draw a distinction between a domestic terminal and an international terminal of an International Airport for the purpose of establishing an Executive Lounge where liquor is served to transiting passengers?

2. The petitioner, a Private Limited Company, represented by its Managing Director, has Hotels and Resorts. In the writ petition, however, the Managing Director projected himself as the petitioner instead of representing the Company--a minor, curable discrepancy. In the course of time, the Company obtained Exhibit P1 licence from the fourth respondent, the Airport Authority of India, to establish an Executive Lounge in the domestic terminal of the International Airport at Thiruvananthapuram. In terms of clause 4 of Exhibit P1 licence, the Company is entitled to sell Beer and Liquor at the Executive Lounge on the production of licence from the State Excise Department and also subject to payment of certain amounts to the Airport Authority of India.

3. The petitioner has applied to the Excise authorities through Exhibit P2 for an FL-7 licence as per the Foreign Liquor Rules ('the Rules'), especially sub-rule (7) of Rule 13. Apart from submitting Exhibit P2 application before the Excise officials, the petitioner has also submitted Exhibit P4 application to the third respondent seeking a No- Objection Certificate (NOC). For the Joint Commissioner of Excise, through Exhibit P5, has insisted on the petitioner's obtaining an NOC from the third respondent, the local authority.

4. When the petitioner had applied for another NOC from the Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs, the said authority, through Exhibit P6, made it clear that the petitioner would not require any NOC from them since it was not dealing with any foreign liquor. At any rate, as can be seen from the record, the Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs, at a later point in time, i.e. on 07.01.2016, issued Exhibit P8 order reiterating what was stated in Exhibit P6. And it was treated as an NOC, anyway.

5. Having come to realise that it need not obtain any NOC from the third respondent, the petitioner once again approached the second respondent for FL-7 licence, but could not succeed as the said authority insisted that the petitioner should produce an NOC from the third respondent. Aggrieved, the petitioner has filed the present writ petition.

6. Smt.Renu, the learned counsel for the petitioner, has strenuously contended that the petitioner need not obtain any NOC from the third respondent in terms of sub- rule (7) of Rule 13 of the Rules and also sub-section (7) of Section 447 of the Kerala Municipality Act ('the Act'). According to her, the second respondent's insistence that the petitioner should obtain an NOC from the third respondent is totally illegal and unsustainable. Drawing my attention to Exhibit P7 interim order in W.P.(C)No. 5923/2015, the learned counsel has contended that this Court, under identical circumstances, has issued an interim direction to another person. The said person, in the course of time, was granted an FL-7 licence by the second respondent. According to her, the same authority ought not to have discriminated against the petitioner.

7. The learned counsel has also taken me through the provisions of the Airports Authority of India Act, 1994, especially Sections 2, 3 and 13 thereof.

8. Summing up her submissions, the learned counsel has contended that the Airport Authority in terms of Act 55 of 1994 is an autonomous entity having all the properties of Airports vested in it. She has, in the end, contended that in the absence of any statutory mandate, the second respondent cannot insist that the petitioner should obtain an NOC from the third respondent, which according to her, is an extra-legal requirement. Thus the learned counsel urges this Court to allow the writ petition: by directing the second respondent to issue to the petitioner an FL-7 licence.

9. Sri.V.Santharam, the learned co