Restrictions on dance bars moral policing: SC
NEW DELHI : The new restrictions imposed on dance bars in Maharashtra seem to be an attempt at moral policing by the state government, the Supreme Court observed on Thursday.
The oral remarks by a bench of justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan came while it was hearing pleas of hotel and restaurant owners challenging the Maharashtra government’s new rules on the functioning of dance bars in the state. The rules, petitioners say, makes it virtually impossible to get a licence to operate the bar.
“This appears to be a case of total moral policing. You have not issued even a single license 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,” Justice Sikri said, amused at the stringent laws.
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.
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. The judge agreed with Naphade the term obscenity has not been defined, but said the contours of what would be depraved and corrupt have changed.
Meanwhile, none of the Maharashtra officials were willing to speak on record, saying they would wait for details of what happened in the SC on Thursday. “The restrictions put on the dance bars by 2016 Act are again challenged by the owners linking them with the fundamental rights of livelihood of the girls working in them. We are expecting the verdict by the apex court during next hearing,” said a senior home department official.
THE AMENDMENT
After an uproar in the Maharashtra legislature over increasing number of dance bars and their impact on the society especially young people, state home department then headed by RR Patil amended Bombay Police Act 1951 to ban the dance bars. All party legislators from Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Raigad districts were vocal about the ‘ill effects of the dance bars and the illegal activities taking place in them.’
The amendment was unanimously passed by the lawmakers in both the houses of state legislature.
In April 2006, the Bombay High Court quashed the amendment stating calling it arbitrary and discriminatory and against the provisions of the Constitution.
In 2006, the State moved the apex court, which upheld the HC order in July 2013 and allowed the dance bars to operate. In 2014, the Maharashtra government further amended the Bombay Police Act to put severe restrictions making operations of the dance bars impossible. It was too challenged in the SC.
In 2016, the state government passed a new bill Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants Protection of Dignity of Women Act 2016 with stricter rules.
(With inputs from Mumbai)