Dance bars allowed to reopen in Mumbai by Court

India’s Supreme Court has remained a law banning dance bars in the western state of its capital Mumbai and Maharashtra, enabling them to reopen.

Maharashtra and the law passed this past year following the top court overturned an earlier ban .

The state government first prohibited dance bars in 2005, saying they “corrupted young people and were a front for crime and prostitution”.

Dancers and tavern owners had bitterly protested from the prohibition. Before the ban, more than 100,000 girls were employed in some 1,400 dance pubs in the state. The women would dance to Bollywood amounts and money frequently threw at them.

The case continues to be going on in the court for a long time.

In July 2013, the Supreme Court said the pubs could reapply for their licences and they may reopen.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court judges stayed the 2014 law saying that it wasn’t quite different from the law passed in 2005 which they’d already declared unconstitutional.

The court ruled that dance bars could now reopen, but said that licensing authorities had the power to regulate “indecent” dance performances. The judges said they would hold a final hearing in the case on 5 November.