The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation petition which sought a ban on the use of glass bottles to sell liquor at the State-run shops. The court said there was no law against the use of glass bottles and that any direction against liquor bottles would have a consequent effect on sale of other consumables too in glass bottles.
Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy refused to entertain the PIL petition filed by Rangarajan Narasimhan of Srirangam at the admission state itself. The litigant had claimed that the use of glass bottles was causing nuisance to farmers since they were invariably thrown in the agricultural fields.
He said the farmers run the risk of stepping on the broken glass pieces and hence it had become a ritual for the farmers to clear their fields of glass pieces before stepping in. The tipplers use the fields for consuming liquor during night hours and throw away the bottles into the fields, he complained. He also referred to a study which claimed that glass was more harmful than plastics.
