Supreme Court Directs Maharashtra Government to Issue Dance Bar Licences

The Supreme Court today directed the Maharashtra government to decide on applications seeking licences for dance bars within two weeks.

Justice Misra then questioned the State’s attitude, asking why it considered dancing at a bar a “social evil”, especially when the court has given authorities a free hand to crack down on obscenity.

Besides the youth going astray, Salve further said that the reopening of dance bars could also result in increase of crime and prostitution across the state. Expressing displeasure over the state government’s delay in implementing its direction, a Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said: “Dance is a respectable concept in India and how can women be barred from earning livelihood by performing dance?”

Salve assured that the order shall be adhered to even though there are “sociological materials” to show “dance bar is an animal in itself” and that there can be dance performances which can degenerate into a form where “legislative intervention” is a must.

When the petition by Indian Hotels and Restaurant Association was taken up for hearing, Maharashtra counsel Harish Salve was cornered by the bench, which bluntly told him, “We stayed the order banning dance bars on October 15”.

Pointing out that there are women who are trained for dance performances, the bench asked “whether women, who have got a distinctive constitutional status, should face this deprivation that stops them from carrying out their profession?”

The court had struck down the 2005 legislation in 2013. The state government approached the Supreme Court against the high court’s judgment and the matter was decided in July 2013, with the Supreme Court too rejecting the ban.

Maharashtra seems hell-bent on moral policing and is doing everything to keep the almost 800 dance bars across the state shut – even though they were ordered to be reopened by the Supreme Court on October 15. The Bombay High Court on 12 April, 2006 had quashed the government’s decision and declared the provision unconstitutional, saying it was against Article 19(1)(g) (to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business) of the Constitution.

The state assembly however, on June 13, 2014, passed the Maharashtra Police (second amendment) Bill which prevented licenses for dance performances in three star and five star hotels. The ban also covered drama theatres, cinema halls, auditoriums, sports clubs and gymkhanas, where entry is restricted only to members. The state police had cracked down on dance performances in bars for the first time in 2005.