Dance bars: State govt, R R Patil get contempt notices for ‘defying’ order

In what may help bar owners lift their shutters once again, the bench admitted the contempt petition filed by the Indian Restaurant and Bar Association and others, and sought the replies from Patil and the Maharashtra government within four weeks.

In July 2013, the Supreme Court had upheld the right of women bar dancers to follow their profession and dismissed the government’s appeal to ban them.

Slamming the Maharashtra government for its “elitist” and “discriminatory” attitude, the court had junked the government’s justification to ban dance bars on grounds that they were obscene and acted as pick-up points for vulnerable girls, while allowing such performances at big hotels.

Backing the Bombay High Court verdict quashing the 2005 ban, the SC had questioned why Maharashtra does not find it to be indecent or derogatory to the dignity of women if they work as a receptionist, waitress or bartender at such bars.

“The judicial conscience of this court would not give credence to a notion that high morals and decent behaviour is the exclusive domain of the upper classes whereas vulgarity and depravity is limited to the lower classes,” the court had said in its scathing criticism of the state legislation that had banned such performances.

But the SC order evidently failed to change the ground realities in the wake of Patil sticking to his guns over continuing the ban and even considering a new law to make sure dance bars do not reopen. Patil has maintained that the ban on dance bars was necessary and it was not moral policing but a demand from various quarters concerned about socio-economic ramifications.

All the applications filed for restoration of licences gathered dust and innumerable reminders went unheeded, prompting the dance bar associations move a Sessions court in Mumbai, pressing for contempt against the state government. They were however asked to move the SC, and a batch of petitions lined up before the bench on Monday.