Dance bars: India
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Ban on dance bars (in Maharashtra)
2015/ Stayed by SC
The Times of India, Oct 16 2015
AmitAnand Choudhary
SC strikes down ban on dance bars in Maharashtra
The Supreme Court stayed the Maharashtra government's ban on dance bars but with the rider that the licensing authority could regulate the performances to ensure they are not even “remotely expressive of any kind of obscenity“. The bars which mushroomed in Mumbai and other parts in the 90s, however, may not be back in action immediately with Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis indicating the state could go in appeal. Reacting to the order, he stressed the court had upheld the state government's power to regulate bars to check obscenity.
This is the second time the court has come to the rescue of bar girls who lost their livelihood. It had declared the ban unconstitutional in 2013 as well.
2019/ SC strikes down ban on dance norms
State Put Conditions Impossible To Adhere To: Court
After a gap of over four years, during which the Maharashtra government persistently dug in its heels, dance bars are set to come alive in Mumbai and other cities in the state after the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside almost all stringent conditions that hampered grant of licence and led to closure of most bars.
Paving the way for opening of the dance bars, a bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said the state government, under the garb of regulation, had imposed conditions that were virtually impossible to adhere to. “The State, thereby, is aiming to achieve something indirectly which it could not do directly,” it said.
Mumbai’s dance bars had been a part of its night life but successive state governments since 2005 sought to discourage live dance performances in bars and this is the third time the SC intervened to protect the interest of owners and bar girls. This time the court quashed provisions to bring dance bars under CCTV surveillance and to ban serving of liquor, noting the regulations are totally disproportionate, unreasonable and arbitrary.
The court said there cannot be a complete prohibition from serving alcoholic beverages and other measures have to be adopted to check any nuisance. The court did, however, agree with the state government in allowing the bars to operate only between 6pm-11:30pm and to ban the practice of showering notes and coins on the dancing stage.
“We see no reason as to why liquor cannot be served at such places. It seems that the state is more influenced by moralistic overtones under the wrong presumption that persons after consuming alcohol will misbehave with the dancers...,” the bench said.
The court said mandatory installation of CCTV cameras at entrances and other places of amusement was “totally inappropriate and amounts to invasion of privacy”. The bench also ruled that separation of the dancing stage from the bar area by placing nontransparent partition is not required.
The court also quashed the provision to ban opening of dance bars within 1km radius of educational and religious institutions, saying the state government did not take into account ground realities, particularly in Mumbai, where it would be difficult to find a place that meets the criteria.
It also set aside the rule which prohibited customers from tipping dancing girls directly. The condition that only a person with ‘good character’ and with no criminal antecedents is eligible to get licence was also set aside by the SC which said these expressions are capable of any interpretation and prone to be misused as per the whims and fancy of government officials.
Alcohol in dance bars: SC faults Maharashtra law
Permits Bars To Run Under Old Norms
The Supreme Court questioned the Maha Court questioned the Maharashtra government on Wednesday over its decision to ban liquor in dance bars and put them under CCTV surveillance, terming it “absurd“ and “regressive“ and allowed bar owners to carry on their business irrespective of the new rules.
A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and C Nagappan asked Maharashtra on how it could ban serving of liquor when the dance bars have valid liquor licence and asked the government why it did not put a blanket ban on consumption of liquor in the state.
The bench said new rules framed by the state would not be applicable to the three dance bars which have got li cence and posted the case for hearing on November 9.
The state government recently framed a new law -Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women Act, 2016 -which says liquor would not be served in the area where bar girls perform. The rules make it mandatory for bar owners to put CCTV cameras inside bar rooms and allowed them to carry on their business only between 6.30 pm to 11.30 pm. The Act also says that no person shall shower notes on the stage or hand over personally to a dancer, a provision supported by the top court.
Challenging validity of the rules, the Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association contended that the restrictions were imposed to prevent them from carrying on their business. Senior advocate Jayant Bhushan, appearing for the association, said the rules violated the earlier SC judgment which held that it was a fundamental right of owners and bar girls to run bars.
Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade and Maharashtra's standing counsel Nishant Katneshwarkar, however, said the state had power to regulate dance bars and restrictions were put to protect the dignity of women and ensure law and order. Naphade said liquor consumption was not a part of fundamental right and the state could ban serving of liquor in bars. He said the state had “absolute right“ to ban liquor in dance bars.
The bench, however, was not convinced with his arguments and said it was highly paradoxical. “You can put other conditions but you cannot say that liquor cannot be served in dance bars. You should take other steps to protect the dignity of women and grant them shelter,“ the bench said. Regarding CCTV cameras, the court said such cameras could at most be installed at the entry points of bars and not inside.
CCTV footage and the law
The Times of India, Mar 3, 2016
Dhananjay Mahapatra
Live footage will violate bar patrons’ privacy: SC
The Supreme Court asked the Maharashtra government to grant licences to dance bar owners within 10 days after they comply with a clutch of modified guidelines. Appearing for the Maharashtra government, additional solicitor general Pinky Anand said police were insisting on being supplied live CCTV footage of performances because they believed that dance bars, which operated till the wee hours, were centres for many other activities and there was a need to keep a constant watch on them. The SC bench asked police to keep men posted in these dance bars if they feared anything untoward would happen there. "But we cannot permit you to insist on CCTV coverage of the performance area as it will be violating the right to privacy of the patrons who may not like their pictures to be flashed all over, especially to a police station," it said. Appearing for the bar and restaurant owners' association, senior advocate Jayant Bhushan agreed to the court's suggestion that CCTV cameras could be installed at the entry point of dance bars as well as in the lobby and restaurant floor.
