Chandigarh: Owners of 2 more bottling plants booked for operating sans permit

The Chandigarh Police on Tuesday booked the owners of two more bottling plants in the city for preparing Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) without valid permit and further transporting these to other states illegally.
Police are also investigating how the liquor was being transported by road to even dry states like Bihar.
The FIRs were lodged against the owners of High Field Distillers and Bottlers Ltd, Plot Number 211, and Rock and Storm Bottlers Pvt Ltd, Plot Number 214, both in Phase 1, Industrial Area.
They were booked under Section 61-1-14 of the Excise Act, and Sections 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code. The FIRs also name “others” who illegally brought extra neutral alcohol (ENA), prepared IMFL liquor and sold it in other states without permit.
Police had received secret information that alcohol manufactured in Chandigarh-based bottling plants was being smuggled to other states.
Earlier, on March 30, joint teams of the UT excise department and local police had raided four other bottling plants — M/s Empire Alcobrew Pvt Ltd, Queen Distilleries & Bottlers Pvt Ltd, Shivalik Beverages Pvt Ltd and Zannat Distilleries Pvt Ltd — after obtaining search warrants, a day after police had booked their owners for similar offences.
Police had also confiscated computers from their offices, as it was suspected that the management of these bottling plants deleted important entries. “A forensic examination of the computers will be done to recover deleted data,” said an investigating official.