The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Cine Costume Make-up Artists and Hair Dressers Association (CCMAA) to accept a woman member or face contempt of court. The CCMAA has been told to make Charu Khurana a member, and warned that any disregard of the Supreme Court's order would attract contempt proceedings against all office bearers.
Asking the CCMAA to accept the two cheques offered by Ms Khurana, a bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C Pant told the association, "You can't discriminate between men and women. Time has come you must accept things in entirety."
The order came after Ms Khurana told the court that she had gone to Mumbai twice but the association had neither accepted her cheques nor given her a membership certificate.
The CCMAA told the court that that it had earlier reduced the membership fee from Rs 15,000 to Rs 5000 but had now increased it to Rs 1 lakh.
"Do you want to go Tihar?," the court asked the counsel for the CCMAA, while directing the body to hand over a certificate of membership to Ms Khurana or her representative whenever they were approached. The president of the CCMAA was present in court.
On November 10, 2014, the Supreme Court had struck down the provision that prohibited women make-up artists and hairdressers from becoming the members of professional associations.
The court had also struck down the provision that required a person to be a resident of Maharashtra for five years to entitle him/her to become a member.
Ms Khurana had filed a petition challenging these two clauses of the association as being discriminatory to women.
Under the provisions, women make-up artists and hair-dressers were not admitted to the CCMAA and thus could not work, as such, in the film industry.
