Hookah Bars In UP Violate Smoking Rules, Cannot Operate In Designated Areas: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a batch of petitions seeking to operate hookah bars in Uttar Pradesh and directed that its judgment be sent to the state Chief Secretary and Director General of Police for “necessary compliance”, holding that hookah bars cannot lawfully operate or provide hookah services in designated smoking areas in public places in the state.

A division bench of Justices Shekhar B Saraf and Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary held that operation of hookah bars and rendering of hookah services by restaurants amounted to a “flagrant violation” of Rule 4(3) of the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008, as amended in 2017, and was contrary to the scheme and object of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA).

The judgment, delivered on September 29, came in the lead petition concerning a restaurant in Lucknow and several connected petitions involving establishments seeking to run hookah facilities.

What did HC direct on hookah bars?

While the court dismissed all the petitions, it also directed its Registry to immediately send a copy of the judgment to the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, for information and necessary compliance.

Court further said it reasonably expected the Uttar Pradesh government to take necessary steps, including issuing a notification on the lines of states such as Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka, imposing stringent punishment for providing hookah services in designated smoking areas.

The bench noted that these states had enacted state-level amendments to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA) specifically banning hookah bars and increasing punishment and fines for violations.

Why did court hold hookah service impermissible?

Court examined the effect of the 2017 amendment to Rule 4(3), which replaced the words “no other service” with “no service” in relation to designated smoking areas.

It held that the amendment imposed an absolute prohibition on services in such areas. This included services relating to food, beverages, tobacco products, herbal products and hookah. Court said the designated smoking area was only a limited statutory exception to the general prohibition on smoking in public places and could not be treated as an extension of a restaurant's normal service area.

The bench also rejected the argument that establishments could avoid the restriction through a self-service model. It found that preparing, assembling, lighting, replenishing and maintaining a hookah for a customer involved service.

Court specifically noted that hookah smoking requires the apparatus to be technically prepared, including filling its base with water, placing tobacco in the bowl and heating charcoal. It held that the process required specific knowledge and could not realistically be treated as self-service by patrons.

Non-smokers' right to clean air prevails

The bench held that the right to carry on a trade or business under Article 19(1)(g) must yield to the right of non-smokers under Article 21 to breathe clean air without involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke in public places.

“The right of the non-smoker to breathe clean air in a public place is a fundamental right,” court said, holding that this right could not be abridged by the commercial interests of establishments.

Court also held that the Food Safety department and municipal corporation did not have jurisdiction to issue licences for regulating hookah bars in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, it upheld the statutory enforcement powers of police authorities under COTPA, including powers to search, seize and confiscate in cases of violations.

In the lead case, the authorities had alleged during a raid that hookah was being operated without requisite permission, smoking was taking place outside the establishment and hookah was being served to minors.

Court also recorded that a single hookah session lasting about an hour involves an estimated 200 puffs and is equivalent in harm to smoking 100 cigarettes. It said the belief that hookah is less harmful than cigarettes is a myth and observed that hookah is “as addictive as a cigarette, as harmful as a cigarette, and contains the same toxic chemicals as a cigarette".

The judgment concluded with the author, Justice Saraf, reproducing a poem describing his own experience with smoking, beginning with his initial dismissal of smokers as “weak-willed” and ending with the warning: “The first cigarette feels like harmless time / It isn’t".

Case title: M/s Aftek Foods and Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. State of U.P. & Others (along with connected writ petitions)

Judgment date: September 29, 2026

Bench: Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary