New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today directed the Maharashtra government to decide on applications seeking licences for dance bars within two weeks. The top court had earlier, on October 15, stayed a law passed by the Maharashtra assembly banning dance bars.
The law banning dance bars - an amendment in the Maharashtra Police Act -
had been passed unanimously without a debate in June 2014. Earlier in 2013, the top court had quashed a similar law banning dance performances.
Restaurant owners had challenged the 2014 amendment, arguing that the state was thwarting the intention of the court. The top court concurred, observing that although it had set aside a similar provision, the law had been brought back in a new manner.
Nearly 1500 bars across the state had employed more than 75,000 women dancers before the state government first imposed the ban in 2005. The Maharashtra Assembly first passed the law that year enabling the ban, which the Bombay High Court struck down as "unconstitutional" in 2006. The state government approached the Supreme Court against the high court's judgment and the matter was decided in July 2013, with the Supreme Court too rejecting the ban.