Excise department busts illegal party in basement of hotel in Lutyens’ Delhi

The Delhi government’s excise department on Monday said it has busted an illegal party organised at the basement parking of The Lalit hotel in Lutyens’ Delhi.

According to the department, a large number of liquor and beer bottles have been seized from the spot in the raid on Sunday night. Officials said the department has issued show cause notices to the manager of the hotel’s club, Kitty Su, and the owner of the event management company.

“The party’s organisers did not have excise license and non-duty paid liquor was being served. The inspection team found commercial ticketing and billing for liquor at the hotel’s basement where the party was going on,” said Alok Kumar, ACP, Excise intelligence bureau.

As per the rule, for commercial sale the organizers should have taken P10A permits which has a fee of ₹1 lakh, but P13 permit which costs only ₹5,000 were taken in this case.

Repeated calls and messages to the hotel’s corporate communications team and other hotel staff went unanswered. Emails to the hotel also did not elicit any response.

“There was an arrangement for the gathering of 5,000 people at the party. The organisers lured people to the party through social media. Organising the party in the basement too was illegal as they had no permissions from fire department or from the civic agency,” another official said.

Earlier this month, the government had suspended excise licence of a night club situated inside the complex of another five star hotel for various violations, including serving liquor to underage customers.