The Supreme Court has declared Rules 18A and 18B of the Maharashtra Poisons Rules, inserted by the 2011 notification, as violative of Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, ruling that the measure addresses only a surface-level mischief while imposing a continuous, disproportionate burden on industrial consumers. The Court held the mandatory addition of one gram of methylene carmine and four grams of denatonium saccharide per 100 litres of methanol to be disproportionate, since the State failed to demonstrate that the denaturant cannot be masked by further colouring or flavouring, and the measure does not address the actual causes of liquor tragedies such as diversion, pilferage, and corruption.
The Court pointed out that Rule 18A(1) would be unworkable because Form A licences are granted only to persons who sell or possess poisons for sale, and not to industrial consumers who use methanol as a raw material, thereby rendering the Form B permit nugatory and excluding genuine manufacturers from lawful procurement. The Court applied the four-pronged proportionality test from K.S. Puttaswamy (Privacy-9 J.) v. Union of India [(2017) 10 SCC 1] and concluded that while the State action pursues a legitimate aim, it fails on suitability, necessity, and balancing, since less restrictive alternatives such as cancellation of licences, stringent renewal conditions, return of unsold methanol, and penal consequences for register discrepancies were left unaddressed.
Accordingly, the Apex Court issued comprehensive suggestions to all States and Union Territories covering multi-departmental coordination, border monitoring, licensing re-look, periodic returns of unused methanol, tamper-evident sealing of containers, dedicated tankers for transport, specialized health cells for liquor tragedies, de-addiction centres, family counselling, and public awareness campaigns, with the Registry directed to forward copies to all High Courts and Chief Secretaries.
A Two-Judge Bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran observed that the impugned rules are subordinate legislation and can be tested on grounds of legislative competence, ultra vires the parent Act, manifest arbitrariness, and failure to fulfil the object of the enabling statute. The Court applied the four-pronged proportionality test laid down in K.S. Puttaswamy (Privacy-9 J.) v. Union of India [(2017) 10 SCC 1], namely, whether the State action pursues a legitimate aim, is suitable to achieve it, is necessary, and is adequately balanced with the rights of the individual.
The Court noted that while the State does have a legitimate aim in preventing methanol-laced liquor tragedies, the impugned rules fail on the remaining three prongs. The Court found that the Form A verification mechanism under Rule 18A(1) is unworkable because Form A is granted only to persons who sell or possess poisons for sale, and not to industrial consumers who use methanol as a raw material, thereby rendering the permit in Form B nugatory. The Court further observed that the mandatory addition of bitterant and colourant under Rule 18A(2) makes the final products of the petitioners unmarketable across multiple industries including pharmaceuticals, dyes, paints, atomic research, and laboratory chemicals.
The Court also noted that the State failed to demonstrate that the denaturant cannot be masked by further addition of colouring and flavouring agents, and that the rules do not address the actual causes of liquor tragedies such as diversion through illegal channels, pilferage, corruption, and confusion between ethyl and methyl alcohol. The Court remarked that the measure addresses only a surface-level aspect and ‘works like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic’.
Briefly, the Supreme Court was called upon to examine the constitutional validity of Rules 18A and 18B inserted into the Maharashtra Poisons Rules, 1972 by a 2011 notification issued by the Maharashtra Government. The trigger for these rules was the 1991 Chhaya Bar tragedy in Andheri, Mumbai, where around 250 persons consumed spurious liquor and approximately 93 persons died after unknowingly drinking methanol. The State appointed the Parthasarthy Committee, which recommended that methanol be added to the Schedule of poisons and that sale be regulated.
Rule 18A mandated that a licensee selling methanol must first ascertain the purchaser’s use by verifying a Form A licence and further required that methanol sold to any non-drug manufacturer be mixed with one gram of methylene carmine (colourant) and four grams of denatonium saccharide (bitterant) per 100 litres. Rule 18B provided that any methanol found in possession without a valid Form A licence shall be confiscated. The petitioners, who are industrial users of methanol in the manufacture of formaldehyde, resins, paints, disinfectants, pharmaceuticals, and laboratory-grade chemicals, challenged these rules before the Bombay High Court, which upheld their validity.
