chennai twentyfour owners of buildings in chennai where existing tasmac retail shops were closed as part of 500 shops closed across the state have approached madras high court challenging the closureadmitting the plea justice c saravanan directed the tamil nadu government and tasmac to respond to the plea in two weeksthe petitioners m balamurugan and 23 others had leased their buildings across chennai thiruvallur kancheepuram ramanathapuram and tuticorin to tasmac for its retail liquor shops on april 20 the state government issued a government order to identify and close 500 out of 5329 tasmac shops across the state it was informed that shops will be identified based on six parameters low sales cluster of shops located near religious educational institutions objected by the public for a long time court litigation pertaining to shop closure and shops that are objected by building ownersthey alleged that though the shops run in the buildings owned by the petitioners dod not fall under any of the parameters the government closed their shopsa representation made to tasmac to review the decision has not been considered they added however on the other hand some of the shops which are still running are within this restricted limit and despite this fact the government has ordered for closure the shops which are actually in compliance with the law they saidsimilarly the annual sales of some of the shops being operated from the petitioners premises are more than the annual sales of the shops which were not closed by the government they pointed out they added that the authorities did not carry out the assessment objectively and there is arbitrariness in the decisionmaking processthey further submitted that the state minister for prohibition and excise had publicly stated that there was an error in identifying the 500 shops to be closed and that government is reconsidering the decision