Raids on couples illegal: Legal expert

Persons, including the resort managements, have every right to invoke provisions under the IPC as well as Article 226 of the Constitution against such raids and also the cops responsible for them.

The Criminal Procedure Code empowers the police to carry out search, seizure and detention of a person on suspicion. But it must be followed strictly within the parameters set by the law, said Pradeep Kumar, a criminal lawyer from the city.

“If the cops receive specific information about any illegal act in a particular room of a resort, the search should be confined to that particular room. The cops have no right to knock on every door of the resort/hotel and cause inconvenience to others,” he added. He said a couple sharing a room is not a crime.

The lawyer clarified that “sex for commercial purpose has been prohibited under law. The perpetrators like the pimp and the organiser of the brothel are punishable under law, however, not a customer. There is no provision under law to produce the customer before the court, but police often pick them up along with organisers. The police, later, must explain the reasons for picking up the customers.”

He said, “If the cops carry out a search or a raid without a warrant, the management has to record such raids through video or closed circuit cameras.”

He said the police must keep in mind the findings of the Supreme Court in Khusboo’s case, in which it found that “Even in the societal mainstream, there are a significant number of people who see nothing wrong in engaging in premarital sex. Notions of social morality are inherently subjective and the criminal law cannot be used as a means to unduly interfere with the domain of personal autonomy.”