Delhi High Court stays liquor serving ban at eatery due to invalid eating house licence

Delhi High Court stays liquor serving ban at Hauz Khas Social due to valid eating house licence till 2024.

The Delhi High Court has stayed an order of the excise department asking ‘Hauz Khas Social’, a popular eatery in the city, to stop serving liquor in the absence of a valid eating house licence.

The High Court, which was informed that the restaurant’s eating house licence was valid till March 31, 2024, and it has been pursuing for the renewal ever since, said that as per law, the registration already granted to the eatery shall enure till the renewal certificate is issued or till an intimation of refusal is issued by the licensing unit of Delhi Police.

“Considering that under… of the Delhi Eating House Registration Regulations, 2023, the registration already granted to the petitioner shall enure, till the renewal certificate is issued or till an intimation of refusal is issued by the respondent No. 2 (police), the direction contained in the show-cause notice-cum-order of April 8, 2024, requiring the petitioner to ‘cease the operation of service of liquor’, is ex-facie misconceived,” Justice Sachin Datta said in the order dated April 9, 2025.

The petitioner, Epiphany Hospitality Private Limited, which operates the restaurant-cum-bar under the name ‘M/s Social and Tinur’, also known as ‘Hauz Khas Social’, at Hauz Khas village in New Delhi, approached the court aggrieved by the sudden disruption of its operations on April 3, 2025, due to the pending renewal of its eating house licence.

The eatery authorities were asked to put on hold the sale of liquor on account of no valid eating house licence with it.

The plea said the petitioner has a valid licence for serving Indian and foreign liquor, which has been extended till June this year.

The counsel for Delhi government’s excise department denied that any seizure of liquor has been done by it, and submitted that it has only issued directions that sale of liquor be discontinued till further directions from the department.