The purpose of any excise law, includes, an object to regulate the manufacture and dealing in liquor and control of other activities connected with the intoxicating liquor. These objects need not be elaborated specifically in the preamble. Though, excise, primarily mean taxation, concept of an excise law comprises within it, any law pertaining to production, and other subjects such as possession, import, export, transport, purchase and sale of liquor etc. The word ‘law’ used here, itself is of a wide amplitude.
As observed in Sahyadri Wine Traders Vs. State of Karnataka, , all kinds of rights to deal in intoxicants, basically belong to the State. Therefore, when a law is enacted providing for the manufacture, sale, possession, etc., of liquor, the State only regulates the manner of parting with its privileges in respect of any one of these matters. Since the rights essentially are of the State, question of enacting a law, to control and regulate the exercise of its own privileges by itself would not arise, except in the context of Art. 14 of the Constitution.
Therefore, the scope of an excise law in respect of several aspects of a dealing in liquor, cannot be held, as lacking in any objective. Every kind of object, properly to be achieved by a law should be read into its preamble, or at any rate, into the scheme of such an enactment.
