State to amend law to keep dance bars shut

Maharashtra plans to amend dance bar laws to prevent their reopening, amid attempts to exploit legal loopholes, following a history of court rulings.

MUMBAI: The state government plans to amend the law governing dance bars in the state, to make sure these establishments cannot be restarted. Currently, a fair number of dance bars continue to operate by taking advantage of loopholes in the law.

Dance Bar - Bar Girls

Sources in the government said a proposal to amend the law will be placed before the cabinet at its next meeting and will be discussed at length in the legislature.

The move comes after the state home department learnt that there was an attempt to restart dance bars from certain quarters. A government officer said the state plans to amend the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurant and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working Therein) Act, 2016, which covers dance bars in the state. “We want to make the opening of such bars a difficult process so that no one attempts to restart them,” said the officer.

The operation of dance bars in Maharashtra has a long and chequered history. Each time the Supreme Court has upheld the rights of bar owners and dancers, the government enacted laws and imposed rules to checkmate these directives.

These bars were banned by the Maharashtra government in 2005 when RR Patil was home minister but, in 2006, the Bombay High Court struck down the ban. In 2013, the Supreme Court upheld the high court verdict.

To circumvent the ruling, the Maharashtra government decided in 2014 to extend the ban to high-end hotels and clubs, which had been exempted 2005. But when the case was argued before the Supreme Court in 2015, the court pulled up the government for flouting its earlier judgment, which had granted relief to dance bar owners.

To counter the Supreme Court verdict of 2015, the Maharashtra government enacted the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016. The act made compliance very difficult and kept most of these establishments shut. The apex court came down heavily on the state for this in 2019.

Sudhakar Shetty, of the Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association (AHAR), said he was not aware of recent developments in the matter.