Harman Sidhu, the man behind the Supreme Court (SC) order banning highway liquor shops, is facing threats after his petition has resulted in the closure of nearly 90 liquor vends in City Beautiful.

Forty-seven-year-old Sidhu, who is 90 per cent disabled from spinal cord injuries and bound to a wheelchair after a road accident, is receiving threat calls and mails ever since the liquor ban on state and national highways came into place on 1 April.

Sidhu is being blamed for making thousands of people unemployed and putting the liquor businessman into a loss.

"Really want to know where were these individuals (threatening him) before when the decision was in progress. The doors of the Apex court was just not opened for me, but for everyone. All of a sudden love for their drink and occupation, makes me ponder what is more imperative in their life alcohol or one's life," Sidhu, who is president of non-governmental organisation (NGO) Arrive Safe, which had filed the petition in the SC.

He blames the Chandigarh Administration for the problems the owners of liquor shops and their employees are facing following the ban. Sidhu said that the city administration did not take up the issue seriously when notice was first issued on his petition in 2006.

"Due to insufficient money the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation could not change the nomenclature of the roads," he said. While blaming the authorities for classifying even inner city roads as state and national highways as a result on which the liquor vends are facing a ban.

“My only concern was the liquor vends on the highways. I was also shocked as the others when even Madhya Marg (which runs the in the middle of Chandigarh) was shown as a state highway. I especially asked the administration to once look into the matter carefully,” Sidhu said.

As many as 91 liquor vends and bars have been closed as they fall into the 500-metre rule. The Hotel and Restaurants Association of Chandigarh claims to have suffered nearly Rs 3 Crore loss this weekend.

“People are forgetting that liquor is not banned, it is just banned in certain places," the station house officer, Women Cell, Gurjeet Kaur said.