State faces SC music on dance bars

State faces SC music on dance bars

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 05:48 PM IST
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Mumbai: The Supreme Court has asked the Maharashtra Government to justify the 26 pre-conditions that they have set for the reopening of dance bars in Mumbai. The pre-requisites were laid down after the apex court had earlier struck down the ban on their functioning.

The court frowned at conditions like provision of live CCTV feed of dance performances to the police and segregation of the dance area from the restaurant. These stringent conditions were preventing the bar owners from applying for new licences (See FPJ edition dated January 24).

Echoing the views expressed in the FPJ report, a bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh said: “Why should stage be covered from all sides? Why should there be a non-transparent partition between the dance area and the restaurant area? Dance is an art.”

The bench also observed that the conditionality that there should be segregation of dance area from the restaurant enclosure presumes that the performance would be “obscene”. “Why are you imposing the condition? As long as nothing obscene is happening… why,” the court asked Addition-

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al Solicitor General Pinky Anand, who was appearing for Maharashtra, and told her to clarify the stand on some of the contentious terms on March 1, the next date of hearing. The dance bar association, represented by senior advocate Jayant Bhushan, has red flagged some of the conditions which he dubbed as ‘regressive.’

The state government had banned dance bars in 2005, following which they had gone to the High Court which had lifted the ban. When the state government approached the SC, the same order was upheld and the bars were allowed to reopen. However, the administration listed 26 preconditions for restarting the dance bars, and some of these were objected to by the dance bar owners in a hearing in the apex court. According to Pravin Agarwal, they explained to the Bench that the pre conditions were almost impossible to follow in letter and spirit. “If we have to set up CCTV cameras in the bars and this footage will be monitored by the police, then who will take care of the law and order problems of the city,” he wondered.  ‘‘We feel that these pre-conditions tantamount to plain harassment,” Agarwal said.

When queried on this subject, Pradip Sawant, deputy police commissioner in charge of the licensing for hotels, said that the court has sought a few clarifications. “We will be answering the questions raised by the court when the next hearing takes place on March 1,”he confirmed.

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