HC condition on Liquor Sale: Heaving burden on AP

Hyderabad High Court had agreed to release the attachment of Liquor depots in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh a short while ago. The court asked the states to continue the sale till the issue is resolved. But imposed a condition that the money got from liquor sales should be deposited in a common account. The court also instructed both the state governments not to use the money till the next instructions.

This will be a huge problem for both the states as Liquor sale income will form a major share of the state incomes. This decision will particularly hurt Andhra Pradesh which is reeling under several financial crisis.

It is known that both the state beverage corporations have arrears to Income Tax department to the tune of 1500 Crore. Income Tax department attached few depots in both the states couple of days ago. This issue is going on for years but the then Andhra Pradesh government evaded the tax by telling that since it is a government corporation it need not pay taxes. While IT sleuths say since it is making money, they have to pay the tax.