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 The observation may spell future relief to hotels, pubs, especially in the metros, which were forced to shut down following the ban.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday prima facie observed that there may be nothing wrong in denotifying particular stretches of highways running inside city limits as city roads and such declassification does not violate its order that national and State highways across the country should be liquor-free zones.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud orally observed that the purpose of the December 15, 2016 prohibition order on sale of liquor within a distance of 500 metres from the outer edge of national and State highways was to prevent drunken driving on high-speed thoroughfares.

The observations came during a preliminary hearing on a petition filed by NGO Arrive Safe Society challenging the Chandigarh administration’s move to denotify certain roads in a bid to “circumvent” the December 15 ban.

Chief Justice Khehar remarked that traffic inside city limits is usually slow and heavy, and stretches denotified fall within the city limits.

“Roads in question do not normally see high-speed traffic. The goal of the liquor ban was to prevent drunken driving in fast-moving traffic. The pace of traffic within the city is very different from traffic outside city limits. The purpose of the ban is to avoid drivers getting inebriated while driving on highways interlinking cities,” Chief Justice Khehar said.

The court has scheduled a detailed hearing on July 11.

The indication from the court may spell future relief to hotels, pubs, especially in the metros, which were forced to shut down following the ban.

The relief is palpable among these establishments as the court, in March 2017, clarified that the ban was not restricted to just liquor shops alongside the highways but also to other larger establishments, including pubs and hotels.

The court had said that exempting establishments other than “shops involved in sale of liquor" — which include bar-attached hotels, wine and beer parlours dotting highways - would amount to dilution of its December 15 judgment’s objective to prevent drunk driving, one of the major killers plaguing Indian roads.

“The pernicious nature of the sale of liquor along the national and State highways cannot be ignored. Drunken driving is a potent source of fatalities and injuries in road accidents. The Constitution preserves and protects the right to life as an over-arching constitutional value,” the clarification order had observed.

The court said its duty to protect public health and safety clearly overrides the interests of liquor traders.

The March 2017 clarification order came after the court heard 68 applications for modification of the December judgment.

The December verdict directed States and Union Territories to stop grant of licences to establishments located within 500 metres of national and State highways. April 1, 2017 was fixed as the date for phasing out existing liquor licences.

The clarification had run completely counter to a legal opinion given recently by former Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi to the Kerala government that the December 15 judgment’s ambit was confined to only retail liquor outlets and not bigger establishments like bar-attached hotels and wine-beer parlours along highways in the State.

The ban had impacted livelihoods and raised practical issues, which challenged the court’s stand that the blanket prohibition was sourced by the judiciary’s “overarching concern for public health”.

The Tamil Nadu government had told the court that its “one-size-fits-for-all” approach would spell more harm than good.

"Ninety percent of the liquor vends are in the city and not in some god-forsaken place outside the city limits. State highways crisscross every small town and district headquarters in my State. Towns have developed rapidly. Small roads with shops on both sides form State highways due to the rapid rise in urbanisation," Tamil Nadu and Telangana governments had submitted.