Here are excerpts from Thursday’s Supreme Court judgment, which relaxed norms for Maharashtra’s dance bars & pulled up state govt for its approach.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday relaxed some of the conditions set by the Maharashtra government for the functioning of dance bars, spelling relief for hotel and restaurant owners and dancers who had approached the top court against the three-year-old rules.
The apex court bench — comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan — while relaxing certain norms and conditions, pulled up the state government for its moralistic approach towards dance bars and dance performances.
“…We would like to re-emphasise that the State cannot take exception to staging dance performances per se. It appears from the history of legislative amendments made from time to time that the respondents have somehow developed the notion that such performances in the dance bars do not have moralistic basis,” the bench noted in its 100-page judgment.
The top court had, on 30 August last year, reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions filed by hotel and restaurant owners, along with women employed in dance bars, challenging the new restrictions imposed by the Maharashtra government on the licensing and functioning of such bars in the state.
According to the amended Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016, bars and restaurants were directed to install CCTV cameras on the premises, as well as restrict the window of operations.
Here are some excerpts from the judgment:
On morality
“A practice which may not be immoral by societal standards cannot be thrusted upon the society as immoral by the State with its own notion of morality and thereby exercise ‘social control’.”
“It needs to be borne in mind that there may be certain activities which the society perceives as immoral per se. It may include gambling (though that is also becoming a debatable issue now), prostitution etc. It is also to be noted that standards of morality in a society change with the passage of time.
“A particular activity, which was treated as immoral few decades ago may not be so now. Societal norms keep changing.”
“This day-to-day incremental change is a subtle, but dynamic, factor in social analysis. It cannot be denied that dance performances, in dignified forms, are socially acceptable and nobody takes exceptions to the same. On the other hand, obscenity is treated as immoral. Therefore, obscene dance performance may not be acceptable and the State can pass a law prohibiting obscene dances.”
“State is more influenced by moralistic overtones under wrong presumption that persons after consuming alcohol would misbehave with the dancers. If this is so, such a presumption would be equally applicable to bar rooms where the alcohol is served by women waitresses.”
“The present legislation is given a cloak of bringing regulatory regime to regulate the places where there are dance performances.”
Also read: Supreme Court spells relief for Maharashtra dance bars, frees them of CCTV rule
Call for objective approach
The court added that the Act made obscene dances a penal offence, however, at the same time, many conditions are stipulated for obtaining the licence, which are virtually impossible to perform.
It was for this reason that not a single establishment was issued a licence under the amended Act even when it was passed in the year 2014.
“Thus, even when the impugned Act appears to be regulatory in nature, the real consequences and effect is to prohibit such dance bars. The State, thereby, is aiming to achieve something indirectly which it could not do directly. Such a situation is beyond comprehension and cannot be countenanced.”
“We hope that applications for grant of licence shall now be considered more objectively and with open mind so that there is no complete ban on staging dance performances at designated places prescribed in the Act.”
Thank God the SC has permitted use of liquor in dance bars. Otherwise if I ever went to one, I would have had to watch the show with a glass of lassi in my hand!