Six months after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on dance bar performances, the Maharashtra government is yet to implement the court's order but has brought a new lawcontaining a rather explicit definition of what is "obscene” in dance.
The new law saw the Supreme Court Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra fuming at the State government, asking the need to re-define obscenity when the court had expressly forbidden obscenity in dance performances.
The Bench demanded whether this law was just a ruse to “circumvent” the apex court's order of October 2015, which ushered dance back into the beer parlours and restaurants, especially in Mumbai.
The Act says an 'obscene dance' consists of “a sexual act, lascivious movements, gestures for the purpose of sexual propositioning or indicating availability of sexual access to the dancer, or in the course of which, the dancer exposes his or her genitals or, if a female, is topless.”
Legal experts said terms used like “lascivious movements”, etc, is at best vague and exposes the dancer and her establishment to the whims of the authorities itching to crack down on them.
This is when in the October 2015 order, the apex court had already underlined its zero tolerance towards dance performances “remotely expressive of any kind of obscenity in any manner.”
The introduction of this law, first published on April 16 in the Maharashtra Government Gazette, follows a batch of earlier restrictions brought by the State, including keeping a close watch on dance performances through CCTV cameras beaming live feeds to the local police control room.
The apex court had firmly puts its foot down against these restrictions and ordered “the authorities to act in accordance with the command of this Court and not venture to deviate.”
Appearing for the hotel owners, senior advocate Jayant Bhushan and senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, for the bar dancers, said that this was the sixth instance of non-compliance by the State and “somebody or some officer responsible should be summoned.”
Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, for Maharashtra, said the applications for licences were “under process” and sought a week's time.
The court scheduled the next hearing for April 25 and ordered the State to file an affidavit of compliance. It asked the Deputy Commissioner of Police, HQ 1, Hotel View, who is the officer responsible for issuance of licences, to be present in court on that day.
In October 2015, the Supreme Court had stayed a provision in the Maharashtra Police Act prohibiting dance performances in beer parlours and hotels.
It had come as a relief for hundreds of women who lost their jobs and slipped into prostitution and penury due to the clampdown after the Maharashtra State Assembly, in July 2014, circumvented a 2013 Supreme Court decision that upheld that “dancing is a fundamental right.”
