Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

1. The appellant is the unsuccessful writ petitioner. He filed W.R(C) No. 23547 of 2016, questioning the excise authorities' refusing to him an FL-11 licence. The Writ Petition dismissed, he filed this intra-court appeal.

Facts in Brief:

Petitioner PS. Bhadrasenan, running a three star hotel, applied to the excise authorities for an FL-11 license under the Foreign Liquor Rules. Bhadrasenan has a bar attached to his hotel, where he wanted to serve beer and wine to his customers.

2. The excise authorities, however, returned it on technical grounds. Rectified and re-presented, the application was once again rejected through Ext. P4 order: The distance between the gate of the hotel and that of a nearby church is below 200 metres-184 metres, to be precise.

3. The Government rejected Bhadrasenan's revision under Rule 40 of the FL Rules. Finally, he filed W.P.(C) No. 23547 of 2016 assailing Ext. P6 revisional order of rejection. A learned Single Judge, through judgment dated 19th June 2017, concurred with the findings of the primary and revisional authorities and dismissed the Writ Petition. So, further aggrieved, Bhadrasenan is before us in the Writ Appeal.

Submissions:

Appellant's:

4. Sri C.C. Thomas, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellant, has contended that both the Department and the learned Single Judge have failed to notice Ext. P10 report jointly prepared by the Deputy Commissioner of Excise and the Joint Commissioner of Excise; they recorded the distance between Bhadrasenan's hotel and the church as 212 metres. He has submitted that the officials, initially, found through Ext. P4 order the distance as 184 metres; later, Bhadrasenan relocated the gate. And with that, the (distance between the two points has increased beyond 200 metres: 212 meters. So, the authorities, after re-measuring the distance, submitted the Ext. P10 report.

5. The learned Senior Counsel has drawn our attention to Note (2) appended to Rule 13(3) of the Rules, He strenuously contended that though a part of the road leading to the gate belongs to Bhadrasenan, still it must be reckoned as public path to ascertain the distance between the two gates. To support his contention, he has relied on Exts. P12 and P14 judgments: M/s. Hotel National Park v. State of Kerala (An unreported judgment dated 17th August 2015 in W.P.(C) No. 2666 of 2014) and State of Kerala v. Babu John 2012 (4) KLT 877 : 2012 (4) KHC 735 (D.B.).

6. As to the church, the learned Senior Counsel has submitted that it is open only in the weekends and on festive occasions; it may soon disappear as the property has been acquired by the Government to widen the road. In the end, the learned Senior Counsel has urged us to set aside Ext. P12 judgment and direct the excise authorities to grant an FL-11 license to Bhadrasenan, the appellant.

The Excise Department:

7. Per contra, Sri. Renil Anto Kandamkulathy, the learned Senior Government Pleader, has strenuously contended that Rule 13, with the note appended to it, is very categoric in its scope and content. According to him, the distance must be measured through the shortest pathway or road generally used by the public. To elaborate, he submits that the expression 'gate to gate' must be understood and interpreted purposively. According to him, Bhadrasenan's stratagem of shifting the gate of his building and showing a part of his property as a pathway cannot be countenanced. A pathway or road in a private property, he asserts, is not accessible to the general public for commuting. As to the judgments Bhadrasenan relied on, the learned Government Pleader has tried to explain them away: They have been rendered entirely in different factual contexts.

8. Heard Sri C.C. Thomas, the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant, Sri. Renil Anto Kandamkulathy, the learned Senior Government Pleader for the respondents 1 to 5, and Sri M.G. Karthikeyan, the learned counsel appearing for the 6th respondent besides perusing the r