CUSTOMERS CAN’T BE BOOKED IF BAR GIRLS DANCE OBSCENELY: HC

The Bombay high court struck down a First Information Report (FIR) registered against three businessmen booked for showering money on bar girls when the police raided the dance bar in Santacruz in March 2018.

“The petitioners are not concerned with the dance performances or connected with the hotel where the dance was performed. No specific overt act is attributed to them,” said the division bench of Justice Prakash D Naik and Justice NR Borkar while striking down their prosecution.

The Santacruz police had on March 6, 2018, registered an FIR against 39 persons found at Star Night Bar and Restaurant, when they raided the bar and claimed to have found that some bar girls were performing obscene dance at the time.

Those rounded up by the police included 20 customers, including the three businessmen – two from Mumbai and one from Deolali in Nashik district-and they too were named in the FIR.

They were booked under Sections 114 (abettor present when offence is committed), 294 (doing an obscene act in any public place or sing, recite or utter any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place to the annoyance of others) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (working therein) Act, 2016 and the Maharashtra Police Act.

The three businessmen moved the high court, through advocate Shreyas A Mehta, to quash the criminal proceedings. Advocate Mehta submitted that from the material collected by the police, it could be said that the three businessmen were present in the dance bar when the police raided the establishment, but mere presence at the place where the dance was being performed cannot be termed as “aiding and abetting” and therefore the businessmen could not have been roped in as accused in the case.