KOCHI: Third wave of Covid-19 may not be far away if the crowding in front of liquor retail shops of Bevco in violation of social distancing is allowed to continue, the Kerala high court said on Thursday.
The observation was made by justice Devan Ramachandran in the order on a contempt of court petition (COC No. 982/2021) over non-implementation of the court’s order four years ago to provide a dignified way to citizens to purchase liquor from Bevco outlets.
In the order, the court said, “What we see now, which is not confined to the factual scenario of this case alone, is that every counter of the ‘BEVCO’ or at least most of them, have these sinuous queues of people, waiting for hours to obtain their quota of beverage. The surge of Covid-19 has added a new dimension to the ominous problem. This is because, as is now commonly known, the pandemic spreads primarily through droplet transmissions and it is internationally accepted that unless we maintain a distance of at least 1 metre from each other, it could be the cause of a further surge. It is now said that we are going through the second wave of the pandemic and if this situation is allowed to continue, in the manner it is presently tolerated, the third wave may not be far away.”
When customers line up in front of liquor shops, it is an affront to the collective dignity of the society and the customer is put to great amount of humiliation, the court said while ordering excise commissioner S Ananthakrishnan to file an affidavit on the issue within 10 days.
