‘No offence in merely visiting dance bar’: Bombay High Court strikes down FIR against 2 men

Bombay High Court. File pic

Striking down the prosecution of two dance bar customers, the Bombay High Court observed that no offence was committed by the two men who merely visited the bar where purportedly obscene dance moves were being performed by some women.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times, the petitioners - Rushabh Mehta (28), a resident of Vile Parle, and Adit Purohit (29), a resident of Andheri (West) - were apprehended by Santacruz police on January 21, 2017, from a dance bar. Both of them were rounded up by police along with bar staff and other customers.

All of them were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (working therein) Act, 2016.

Both Mehta and Purohit moved the HC, through advocate Sandeep Sherkhane, for quashing of criminal proceedings against them. The two contended that no overt acts were attributed to them and even if the material collected by police was taken as it is, no offence was made out against them, therefore the proceeding was liable to be struck down.

The HC bench of justice Sambhaji Shinde and justice Manish Pitale accepted the argument and noted that Sections 294 (performing an obscene act in public) and 114 (abetment) of the IPC, slapped against them, comes into play only when someone indulges in any obscene act at a public place.

Referring to the sections of the 2016 act, the bench observed that there was no material to indicate ingredients of the sections, except mere mentioning of the names of the petitioners in the FIR and the charge sheet, which the court stated was not sufficient to prosecute the petitioners.