The Allahabad High Court has held that restaurants in Uttar Pradesh cannot provide hookah service even in Designated Smoking Areas, because the amended Rule 4(3) of the 2008 Smoking Rules prohibits any service in a smoking area, and that a non-smoker’s right to clean air under Article 21 cannot be abridged by commercial interest.
The Customs department argued that an importer whose goods were held to be ‘prohibited’ should have appealed rather than approached the High Court. The Calcutta High Court held the writ maintainable, observing that where a statutory authority steps outside objective law into subjective morality and affects the fundamental right to trade, the court will not turn the litigant away. It expressed no view on the merits.
