By Ranjeev Dubey Feb 11, 2019 1:34:03 PM IST (Updated)
Back in August 2005, in a fit of moral rectitude, Maharashtra banned the 'holding of a performance of dance, of any kind, in an eating house, permit room or beer bar'.
Fifteen years after the Maharashtra government decided it wanted its bar girls to dance no more, the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association v State of Maharashtra has delivered the reassuring message that liberal winds continue to blow through the fair corridors of the Supreme Court. Let’s celebrate the eclipse of this retrograde piece of legislation.
Back in August 2005, in a fit of moral rectitude, the state banned the 'holding of a performance of dance, of any kind, in an eating house, permit room or beer bar'. It made an exception only of ‘elite establishments’ presumably on the ideological assumption that the rich were incorruptible! In the result, reportedly 75,000 girls working in some 700 establishments together with twice as many men lost their jobs.
Not all of them were destitute women exploited by rapacious men. Celebrated bar dancer Tarannum Khan, whose Versova bungalow was raided by the Income Tax department in September 2005 for tax evasion, is said to have earned on average ten lakhs for eight hours of work. Abdul Karim Telgi, the main accused in the fake stamp duty case, once rained Rs 93 lakh in crisp notes on Tarannum in a single night.