Meet Wheelchair Bound Harman Sidhu, The Man Behind Supreme Court¡¯s Order Of Liquor Ban Along Our Highways

All those who welcome the Supreme Court verdict of banning liquor shops operational within 500 metres of National Highways (NH) should know the story of Harman Sidhu, the man behind the SC decision.

The 47-year-old Harman Sidhu, bound to a wheelchair, is the man Supreme Court¡¯s order banning liquor outlets within 500 metres of all state and national highways, according to a TOI report. It was Sindhu¡¯s efforts that made the apex court taking this colossal decision which is likely to axe the revenue of the states by a great deal.

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Sidhu, an almost 90 percent disabled person has been fighting for the safety of the accident victims ever since he met with an accident in 1996 which forced him to remain wheelchair-bound following the spinal injuries.

On October 24, 1996, Sidhu was in car with two other friends, returning to Chandigarh from Himachal Pradesh. Sidhu told that in the previous trip, they had spotted a Leopard on the Chandni in Sirmaur district. And in order to repeat that feast to their eyes, three friends decided to drive off the road. But this time, they were unfortunate and their car fell into gorge resulting injuries to all three. But Sidhu who was in the rear seat got some serious spinal injuries which prevented him to stand on his feet ever since.

¡°During my two-year long treatment at PGI, I observed that most injured persons being brought to the emergency section were in the road traffic injury category. That was when I decided to do something constructive,¡± Indian Express quoted Sidhu as saying.

Sidhu established ArriveSafe, a road safety NGO in 2006.

But it was in 2011 when the idea of campaigning against the liquor vends came in his mind and he moved an application in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

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In 2014 March, the High Court ordered that liquor vends should not be visible or accessible from national and state highways. Fearing for losing revenue, governments of both Punjab as well as Haryana went to SC with plea that liquor vends should be closed on national highways, but should remain operational on state highways.

But in December 2016, SC ordered that vends shouldn¡¯t remain operational on both NH as well as the state highways. Sidhu¡¯s phone has been ringing ever since.

While a few calls are of appreciation, and some from the media, many are threatening calls from people in the liquor business, Sidhu said.

Sidhu even claimed that one caller offered him Rs 25 crore. He also received 10 calls from diplomatic missions seeking to find out the average number of liquor vends on highways.

Sidhu told one of the callers that on the 291-km stretch from Panipat to Jalandhar, there were 185 liquor vends. This information, he said, was given to him by the NHAI in response to an RTI query. Sidhu also revealed to the Indian Express that he travelled over 50000 kilometres across Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in a custom-built vehicle gathering information on these vends and spent around Rs 9 lakh.