Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case: Juhu bar's license suspended for serving liquor to 23-year-old accused Mihir Shah

MUMBAI: The state excise administration has suspended the license of a Juhu-Tara Road bar that served hard liquor to Mihir Shah, who had not yet attained the age of 25 years. This is a basic criterion for serving or drinking whisky, rum, vodka, or similar Indian-made foreign liquors (IMFLs) in the state. The bar premises have been sealed until the next hearing.According to excise officials, Mihir, who is 23-years-old, is the culprit in the Worli hit-and-run case.
The excise department also found various irregularities with the bar, named Don Giovanni Restaurant (Jobel Hospitalities Pvt Ltd bearing license number FL3,1489), aside from serving liquor to the underage Shah. Interestingly, on the cash memo or receipt, the bar was named Vice-Global Tapas Bar, located on Juhu Tara Road opposite Juhu Church Road.
Following the Worli hit-and-run, this is the first action taken by the excise department, with more likely to follow. After the Porsche mishap in Pune, which killed two young students due to a drunk minor, around 60 bars across the Mumbai metropolitan region were closed for 5 to 10 days as punishment for not following closure timings, offering liquor to underage patrons, and not issuing a day's drinking permit to them. This action was part of the license suspension punishment.
A notice issued by the suburban district collector to the Juhu bar on behalf of the state excise revealed that during interrogation, it was found that Dhruv Jawahar Dedhiya and three others, including Shah, had entered the bar premises and were served hard liquor. Mihir, son of Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah, has been prima facie found responsible for ramming his BMW into a couple's bike, killing a woman who was thrown a considerable distance from the accident spot due to the impact of his car.
It may be mentioned here that post-Porsche incident in Pune, the state excise commissioner, Vijay Suryawanshi, had issued stringent directives to all bars and liquor shops across the state to install CCTVs to monitor their entrances and counters in real-time for underage customers and closure timings by state excise officials. However, the monitoring and vigilance of all the bars and shops in the city and the state seem to be far from meeting expectations.
The license of the Juhu bar where Mihir had liquor has been suspended until the next hearing before the suburban collector on July 19, said excise officials. Other irregularities found in the investigations by the excise police included selling liquor to non-drinking permit holders in non-permitted areas, non-submission of licensed premises for inspection, mixing the permitted liquor serving area with the non-permitted restaurant zone, discrepancies in the liquor stock permitted versus non-permitted, lack of a liquor transport license for a certain amount of liquor stock, and wrongly naming the bar as Vice Global Tapas Bar on the receipts or cash memos. A hearing on the notice issued to the bar has been scheduled for July 19, and until then, bar operations have been sealed, said excise officials.