Supreme Court clears decks for dance bars in Mumbai

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected as “absurd” a Maharashtra rule requiring all dances bars to beam their performances live to nearby police stations to check obscenity and ensure the safety of the performers.

The court brushed aside a last-minute concession by the state to not insist on live feeds but on recordings that could be accessed when needed.

“CCTVs can be at the entrances, not in the performing area,” a bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh said. The state had brought in the rules to tighten its grip over dance bars after the top court earlier upheld the right of bar dancers to practice this profession.

Lawyers speaking on condition of anonymity wondered about the effect of such live beaming to police. The police are neither gender-sensitised nor productive, one lawyer said.

“Live feeds of such performances will only decrease productivity and lead to a rise in crimes in custody against women,” the lawyer said. The rules have since been challenged in the top court, which is now considering their legal and constitutional validity. However, for the moment, the court would not hear of police keeping an eye on the performances.

“The performances should be bereft of obscenity. But for the present they may not have CCTVs,” the bench directed.

The court also refused to accept another rule that made it mandatory for every licensed dance bar to have a partition separating the dancers from the audiences from all sides.