Chennai: Slamming the police for entering into spas and massage centres under the guise of raid and taking the girl therapist working there and confining them in government homes, the Madras high court has quashed the FIRs registered against nine therapist including a girl therapist from Indonesia and a spa in Alwarpet.
Allowing a batch of petitions, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh said in recent times, this court witnessed a flurry of cases challenging the action initiated by the police against spas and massage centres, its owners and women working as massage therapists in these centres, under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. In all these cases the owners were added as the accused and the women working in these centres were shown as victims involved in prostitution, the judge added.
Explaining in detail, the legal issues involved in these cases, the insight into human behaviours, outlook of the society regarding spas and massage centres, ignorance of science behind massage and the urgent need to get out of the pre-conditional mind of the majority who unfortunately see spas and massage centres as brothel houses, the judge said in the present case, the record shows a further consideration of interest and significance, as it affects the rights of the individual.
“The public prosecutor does not dispute that even a prostitute is entitled to the protection of her person. Certainly, she is as such entitled to protection as the most respectable women for instance with regard to such offences as indecent assault or rape,” the judge added.
Citing a case of a therapist, the judge said, “Here we have an instance of an officer, accompanied by witnesses, proceeding into the bedroom of a young girl and pushing open a closed door, without even the civility of a knock or other warning to her to prepare for the intrusion. Such conduct would be quiet inexcusable, unless the officer thereby hopes to gather the evidence which is essential for proof of any charge.”
“But since prostitution is not an offence, I am really unable to see how the officer and party were justified in thus bursting into the bedroom of a girl and surprising prosecution witness and an accused together in a state of undress. There can be no doubt that such conduct implies an outrage on the modesty of the girl,”said the judge.
The judge said the technique of employing decoy witnesses for the detection of crime under the Act by the police in this case was against all standards of decency and shocks one’s conscience. Such methods instead of preventing the evil were likely to encourage it. It has been deprecated by various courts in the country “and I must also add my voice to it,” the judge added.
The judge said police have no legal right to prevent a health spa being operated by anyone even if the therapy was done by persons of one sex to those belonging to the opposite sex. A health spa, where cross gender massages was a worldwide phenomenon, there was no legal prohibition and to borrow the wordings of the Supreme Court, except the majoritarian impulses rooted in moralistic tradition which was attempting to impinge upon individual autonomy, the judge added.
Coming to the case of the Indonesian therapist, the judge said the entire action of the police was illegal and it has violated the personal liberty of the petitioner and also her reputation.
This was clearly a case of colorable exercise of power. If this power was unchecked, spa centre or a massage parlour can be run only under the mercy of a police officer.
For an extraneous consideration, the police can brand any spa or a massage centre as a brothel and even if a brothel was run in the name of a spa or massage centre, no action will be taken. This situation was neither good for society nor to the police force, the judge added and directed the state government to pay Rs 2.5 lakh as compensation to the girl.
