Sex workers should not be allowed to operate: Government to Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court said it would examine the government's plea that sex workers should not be allowed to operate in any manner as it would be against the statute prohibiting the world's oldest trade.

Appearing for the Centre, additional solicitor-general PP Malhotra told a special bench of justices Altamas Kabir and Gyan Sudha Misra on Thursday that any such endorsement by SC would go contrary to the vires of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act which bans prostitution in toto.

Malhotra asked SC to delete the reference made by the apex court in its order of July 19, last year on the issue relating to "creating conditions conducive for sex workers to work with dignity".

He wanted the bench to remove the West Bengal-based NGO Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee from the panel constituted by the apex court as the organisation was championing the cause of sex workers and had also filed a writ petition before the Calcutta HC in support of prostitution.

On July 3, SC, while appointing a committee, had formulated three questions for reference: Prevention of trafficking, rehabilitation of sex workers who wish to leave the sex work, and conditions conducive for sex workers who wish to continue working as sex workers with dignity.

The Centre's move was however, opposed by senior counsel Jayant Bhushan, acting as an amicus curiae and Anand Grover who submitted that the Act only prohibited brothel activities and punitive action against pimps. In other words the counsel contended that if a sex worker carries out the activities on her own volition, then it was not an illegal Act.

SC, after hearing the arguments, said it would examine the issue at length since it did not want to give an impression that SC was giving it's "stamp of approval" for an act that is purportedly illegal.