Written By: Shraddha Rupavate | Published : December 9, 2014 12:21 PM IST
New Delhi, Dec 8: Three years after BMC imposed a ban on hookah parlours in the city, the Supreme Court Monday ruled that the ban was illegal. Setting aside the judgements passed by three high courts, which issued prohibition of sale of tobacco containing products in premises like eating joints, the SC ruled that sale and use of hookahs in hotels, eating joints where smoking is legally permitted cannot be banned.
Why did the SC lift the imposed ban?
The SC pointed out the clauses and the definition, per se, of smoking under the Cigarettes Act. According to the act, smoking tobacco in any form with the help of a pipe, wrapper, or any other instrument, which would include a hookah and the expression, 'no other service shall be allowed', referred to services other than hookahs. (Read: Hookah smoke could now cause cancer)
The bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Nariman ruled that as per the definition the hookahs can be permitted in legalised areas or smoking zones. They pointed out the the ban has made the condition bad as it does not allow the licensee to keep or sell or provide any tobacco or tobacco related products in the licensed premises. (Read: Hookah smoking just as dangerous as cigarettes?)
By imposing the ban on the sale of cigarettes or any other tobacco products in licensed premises, the civic bodies added an exception to the act, which is impermissible in law, the bench said while setting aside the order of the Madras, the Bombay and the Gujarat High Courts which had allowed restriction on sale of tobacco products. (Read: Hookah bars have higher indoor air pollution)
By lifting the ban, the law now states, as it stands, that smoking is prohibited in all public places across the nation, except licensed and specially designated premises like smoking rooms in hotels, restaurants and airports. According to the law, smoking and sale of cigarettes is permitted outside a 100-yard radius of educational institutions.
Making an excepting by banning hookahs and tobacco related products in hookah parlours, which is a licensed premise is impermissible by the law, the ban goes against the law to introduce an exception (Read: Tobacco in hookah less harmful than that in cigarettes)
With inputs from PTI
Photo source: Getty
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