Kollam , The Keralam government will file a fresh additional affidavit in the High Court on granting bar licences to hotels whose star classification applications are pending before the Union Tourism Ministry, Excise Minister M Liju said on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters, Liju said the fresh affidavit would be submitted in view of new information received from the Union Tourism Ministry regarding the status of applications for star classification.
“The state Excise and Taxes departments wrote to the Union Tourism Ministry seeking details of how many applications were pending and how many had been rejected. “The government wants to proceed transparently and protect the existing rules, laws and policy.
He said bar licences were normally granted to hotels having classifications ranging from three to five stars under the existing policy. Liju said that after the new government assumed office, it found that the details of applications rejected by the Union Tourism Ministry were unavailable. Since the information was not available, the government initially filed an affidavit explaining the position adopted by the previous government,” he said. We have also obtained the opinions of the State Attorney and the Excise and Taxes departments,” he said.
The minister said the Centre had since responded, providing details of the number of applications rejected and those still under consideration. He also said the Union Tourism Ministry has now filed a fresh affidavit before the High Court in connection with the case.
