The Supreme Court on Thursday relaxed stringent conditions set by the Maharashtra government that had made it virtually impossible to get licences for dance bars. The top court ruled that it was okay to regulate the bars but the state could definitely not prohibit them.
One of the provisions of the 2016 notified Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016 says that licenses would not be approved if the dances were derogatory to the dignity of women and were likely to deprave, corrupt or injure public morality. This, bar owners, say is subject to misuse by authorities.
A bench of justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had said in August, “This appears to be a case of total moral policing. You have not issued even a single licence and rejected all. It’s inconceivable that the authorities are under the apprehension and working with a bent of mind that the dance at the bars is obscene in nature.”
The judge said that if the enforcers of law have a specific mindset then they would always find an act immoral. “You talk about prurient interest of audience in the rules. But if the enforcer has a mindset then he would find even a moralistic dance obscene or immoral,” Justice Sikri told senior advocate Shekhar Naphade who is defending the law.
First Published: Jan 17, 2019 11:10 IST
Source: HindustanTimes