The court rules: obscenity doesn146;t apply to dance bar

A Bombay High Court judgment in a Nagpur dance bar case has exposed the Maharashtra government8217;s moral policing business.Justice A H Jo...

A Bombay High Court judgment in a Nagpur dance bar case has exposed the Maharashtra government8217;s moral policing business.

Justice A H Joshi, on April 4, quashed the FIR and the chargesheet against 98 persons rounded up on April 9, 2000, during a raid on Nagpur8217;s Executive Club dance bar. The judgment said that the obscenity sections of the Indian Penal Code IPC, invoked by the prosecution, didn8217;t apply since the dance programme, during which the raid was conducted, 8216;8216;didn8217;t cause any annoyance to anyone.8217;8217;

The petitioners8212;bar-owners Dhananjay Deodhar and Laxman Nayak8212;had moved the High Court against their prosecution in the lower court by the police.

The police said in the chargesheet that girls wearing transparent clothes were dancing, making indecent gestures 8216;8216;arousing sexual desire in customers,8217;8217; touching their bodies and earning tips from them. They had cited Sections 292 and 294 of the IPC.

The petitioners had challenged the use of these sections on the ground that 292 was applicable to the sale of obscene books while 294 applied to cases of obscenity of action, gestures and spoken words in public places 8216;8216;causing annoyance to others.8217;8217; Since no witness has complained of 8216;8216;annoyance,8217;8217; there was no offence, they had argued.

8216;8216;We stand vindicated,8217;8217; Deodhar told The Sunday Express. 8216;8216;The moral policing business has been dealt a severe blow.8217;8217;

Deodhar cited the 1984 Supreme Court verdict, which set aside the HC ruling confirming government officer Pawan Kumar8217;s dismissal from service for watching pornography. The judgment had said: 8216;8216;The HC should have been sensitive to the changing perspective and concepts of morality to appreciate the effect of IPC8217;s Section 294 on today8217;s society and its changing views of obscenity.8217;8217;