New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Maharashtra government to file its reply to a writ petition filed by Indian Hotels and Restaurants Association challenging a new law aimed at regulating the state’s dance bars. The top court also came down hard on the practice of throwing cash on the dancing girls.
Justices Dipak Misra and S. Nagappan, while admitting the dance bar owners’ plea, rejected the State’s objection for entertaining the petition and sought reply in six weeks.
Senior counsel Jayant Bhushan, appearing for the Association, said conditions, including the installation of CCTV in dance bars were unconstitutional — affecting fundamental rights of the bar girls. Other conditions included no dance bars around a kilometre from religious sites, schools and no liquor.
Even as senior counsel Shekar Naphade, for Maharastra, opposed the petition saying that preventing obscenity was the policy of the State, the Bench agreed with the State to a limited extent saying, “Currency can’t be thrown at dance women in bars. It is against the dignity of women.” The Bench, however, did not agree with the condition on installing CCTV in bars as it said that such regulation is against the 2013 judgment.
Vyapam re-hearing on hold
The Supreme Court has faulted an order passed by a three-judge Bench in July this year referring an appeal in the Vyapam medical admissions scam for re-hearing.
A Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre in a cryptic order on Tuesday said, “Neither the Constitution nor any other law of this country provides an intra-court appeal insofar as the Supreme Court is concerned.”
The Bench said a re-hearing of the entire matter as apparently suggested by the larger Bench, “in our opinion, would amount to an intra-court appeal.”
