Opposition leader in Maharashtra Assembly Radha Krishna \u00a0Vikhe Patil <\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nLeader of opposition in the Maharashtra assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil from the Congress said in a statement that the government should bring an ordinance and ban dance bars. For once, the Congress seems to back the NCP. When Patil had banned dance bars in 2005, Vikhe-Patil had said it was a step in the right direction. He had said that it was not a question of depriving women of their livelihood alone but it had a negative impact on society. The state must take steps to ensure the ban stays in effect, he added.<\/span>
\nWhen it banned dancing in eating houses, permit rooms and beer bars in 2005, the Maharashtra government took the excuse that it had received complaints about these performances. The amendment to the Bombay Police Act 1951 said the government considers that such performance of dances in eating houses, permit rooms or beer bars are derogatory to the dignity of women and are likely to deprave, corrupt or injure public morality or morals. It exempted theatres and auditoriums\/sports clubs\/ gymkhanas, where entry is restricted to its members only, three-starred and above hotels and cultural and tourism activities.<\/span><\/p>\nBAN CHALLENGED<\/span>
\nThe ban was challenged by bar owners and dancers, among others, and the Bombay High Court in its order of April 2006, declared the provisions of Sections 33A and 33B of the Bombay Police Act as unconstitutional being ultra vires the Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) of the constitution. The state government appealed against this but the apex court upheld the ban in 2013. Not to be cowed down, the Maharashtra government amended the Bombay Police Act quickly once again in 2014, banning dance bars in all other places also, leaving the women high and dry.<\/span><\/p>\nWhile staying the ban, the latest Supreme Court order says: \u201c\u2026we add a rider that no performance of dance shall remotely be expressive of any kind of obscenity in any manner. We may hasten to clarify that in the earlier judgment, it has been clearly stated that sufficient power is vested with the Licensing Authority to safeguard any violation of the dignity of women through obscene dances. Regard being had to the same, the Licensing Authority can take steps so that the individual dignity of a woman is not affected and there remains no room for any kind of obscenity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nFlavia Agnes, who has represented the bar dancers in the Bombay High Court, said that the court has raised the issue of obscenity but no one is talking of the girls and their rights. \u201cWhat about the dancers? Who will protect them and make sure they get their rights as workers?\u201d she asks. She is among those who have constantly raised the issue of the livelihood of women over the morality question.<\/span><\/p>\nThe 2013 Supreme Court order upheld the High Court stay on the basis that dancing was a fundamental right. The current order upheld and quoted what the Bombay High Court said: \u201cThe state has failed to establish that the restriction is reasonable or that it is in the interest of general public. The High Court rightly scrutinized the impugned legislation in the light of observations of this Court… wherein it was held that greater the restriction, the more the need for scrutiny. The High Court noticed that in the guise of regulation, the legislation has imposed a total ban on dancing in the establishments covered under Section 33A.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe High Court in its order staying the ban had said: \u201cIn our opinion, it would be more appropriate to bring about measures which should ensure the safety and improve the working conditions of the persons working as bar girls.\u201d It said that \u201cthe restrictions in the nature of prohibition cannot be said to be reasonable, inasmuch as there could be several lesser alternatives available which would have been adequate to ensure safety of women than to completely prohibit dance. In fact, a large number of imaginative alternative steps could be taken instead of completely prohibiting dancing, if the real concern of the State is the safety of women.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAbout 75,000 bar girls were rendered jobless on August 15, 2005. The plight of the women seems to hardly affect the state government. On three occasions, the courts have come to the aid of the bar dancers but it remains to be seen how the order will be implemented and whether questions of fundamental rights and livelihood prevail over moral outrage and dubious notions of obscenity.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the Supreme Court stayed the ban on dance bars, it is a moot question whether the Maharashtra government will accept the verdict. It hasn\u2019t budged in the past By Meena Menon It is not for the first time that the courts have come to the rescue of bar dancers. But the Supreme Court order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[221],"tags":[929,930,931,850],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Protest-Dance-bar-1fffffffffffffffffffffffff.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}