Courts cannot be a party to unlawful activities such as indecent representation of women and luring youngsters towards a wrong path by granting permission to dance programmes, popularly known as ‘Aadal Paadal’, conducted in almost all villages in the State as part of local temple festivals, the Madras High Court Bench here has held.
Dismissing a batch of 35 writ petitions seeking permission for Aadal Paadal in various districts, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana said that such programmes could not be permitted even by imposing stringent conditions as there was a risk of the conditions being violated.
“Once the conditions are violated, the damage caused cannot be restored,” she added.
The judge also pointed out that a perusal of the case records showed that representations, reportedly made by the petitioners to the police officials concerned, had been sent from a post office on the High Court Bench campus and not from their villages. Further, the writ petitions had been filed within a day or two from the date on which the representations had been sent.
“This raises a doubt as to whether the representations have been sent by the petitioners themselves who claim to have genuine interest in the conduct of the festival. From the above conduct, it can be seen that the petitioners have rushed to this court even before the representations could reach the respondents… Such practice has to be deprecated and cannot be entertained,” the judge added.
Ms. Justice Sathyanarayana also recorded the submissions made by a landowner who had filed a petition seeking a ban on such dance programmes on various grounds. The litigant had claimed that many villagers consumed liquor and threw away plastic cups and liquor bottles on his property while watching the programme, thereby creating environmental problem.
He had also said some people picked a quarrel in an inebriated mood leading to law and order problem. It also led to a communal clash when the organisers compelled the dancers to perform for songs degrading a specific community or a political leader, the landowner had added.
