Liquor ok but no CCTV in dance bars
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed dance bars in Mumbai to continue to operate under the old terms and conditions that existed before a stringent new law to regulate their functioning was promulgated earlier this year.
The court was hearing the petition of the bar owners, challenging the norms regulating bars under the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (working therein) Act, 2016.
The new rules, among other things, limited the bar timings from 6 p.m. to 11.30 p.m., prohibited the serving of liquor in the performance area, and required installation of CCTV cameras with live feed for police to monitor.
The Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and C. Nagappan fixed the case for final hearing on November 24, ruling that "persons granted licence should be allowed to continue under old terms and conditions."
The order referred to three licensed dance bars of Mumbai that have proper CCTVs and observed that they can continue to operate and need not implement the new law enacted by the state government.
Observing that prohibition of liquor in the dance bars is absurd if the owner has the liquor bar licence, the Court questioned the government's hypocrisy. "Why don't you ban liquour consumption in the state as a whole? You can put other conditions, but you cannot say that liquor can't be served." The Bench said putting CCTVs in dance bars may violate the privacy of people patronising the bars.
The Maharashtra government defended its new law on dance bars, saying that the state "desires to regulate the dance performance in bar so as to protect the dignity of women performing dance in the bar rooms."
"You fight for the dignity of the women. You protect the dignity of the women. But if somebody has a bar licence and a dance bar, you can't say don't serve liquor. Anybody who has a bar licence, you can't say that you can't serve liquor" Justice Misra said. In its affidavit on Friday, the state government said that the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (working therein) Act, 2016, enacted in April did not need to define an "obscene" performance since "an ordinary prudent man can certainly tell that which dance is designed only to arouse the prurient interest of the audience." Unrelenting on its position to prohibit serving of liquor in the dance bar, senior counsel Shekhar Naphade told the court "I have a right to prohibit liquor in bar and it (right to prohibit the liquor) will remain unless it is taken away by the court." Appearing for Maharashtra government, Naphade also defended the new rule that mandates the dance bars to install CCTV In dance area saying that it was a part of the police power of the State to curb obscenity and if it was stayed then it would amount to denying police powers to the State government. "I have a power to regulate and I have a right that my regulations are complied with and only way I can do it is through CCTV", Naphade told the court. An unimpressed Bench said: "We understand logically and constitutionally the powers of the police." It then went on to ask senior counsel Jayant Bhushan appearing for the petitioner Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association representing the dance bar owners if they could make some house arrangements so as to assist the police in the event of any requirement. Bhushan told the court that CCTV had a chilling affect on the people coming to dance bar. "People have some right to privacy. People doing even legal things don't want to be watched," he said. He insisted that the CCTV violates the fundamental rights of the owners, bar girls and the guests. The apex court had on August 30 issued a notice to the Maharashtra Government over a new law for the dance bar licences, asking the BJP-led state government to reply within six months. Dance bar owners have objected to the restriction of maintaining a 1-km distance from any religious or educational structure claiming it was not possible in big cities. They claimed that another curb of shutting down the bars before 11.30 p.m. is discriminatory at a time when the central government was promoting round-the-clock business by commercial establishments. The apex court had in May directed the Maharashtra Government to grant licenses to eight dance bars within two days and asked them to give an undertaking that they would not engage employees with criminal antecedents near the dance area. On March 2, it had rejected the state government's demand to provide live CCTV footage of performance in the dance bars to police, and asked it to grant licences to owners within 10 days after they complied with the modified guidelines.