The Supreme Court today came down on Maharashtra government for putting certain conditions for granting licences to dance bars across the state like providing live CCTV feed of performances to police and segregating the dance area from the restaurant.
“Why the stage should be covered from all sides? Why there should a non-transparent partition between dance area and restaurant area? The dance is an art,” a bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh said.
The bench was critical of some pre-requisites fixed by the state police for granting licences to dance bar owners and said the condition that there should be segregation of dance area from that of restaurant presumes that performance would be “obscene”. “Why are you imposing the condition? As long as nothing obscene is happening…why,” it asked Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for Maharashtra, and told her to clarify the stand on some contentious conditions on March 1, the next date of hearing.