Hotel Priya vs State of Maharashtra
Background
The appellants owned or operated restaurant-cum-bars in Mumbai featuring live "orchestra" performances, for which they held licenses under the Maharashtra Police Act, 1951 and rules framed under it. In 2009 the Commissioner of Police imposed additional license conditions capping the number of on-stage performers at eight, with a strict split of exactly four male and four female artists. The appellants challenged this gender-based cap before the Bombay High Court, which upheld the Commissioner's power to impose it; the appellants then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that while an overall cap of eight performers per stage was reasonable, the further requirement of an equal four-four gender split had no rational basis and was not supported by anything in the Maharashtra Police Act or its rules. Relying on its own earlier rulings (State of Maharashtra v. Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association, and Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association v. State of Maharashtra) which had already struck down blanket bans and restrictions on dance bars as resting on outdated, paternalistic assumptions about women in this line of work, the Court found the gender-cap condition violated Article 15(1) (non-discrimination) and Article 19(1)(g) (freedom to carry on a profession/business), both for the performers and for the bar owners. The Court declared the gender-cap condition void, while leaving the overall numerical limit of eight performers per stage intact.
Lesson Learnt
A licensing authority cannot impose restrictive conditions, especially ones based on gender stereotypes, that go beyond what the parent statute and rules actually authorize; regulations aimed at "protecting" women can themselves become discriminatory if they end up limiting women's choice of livelihood rather than genuinely safeguarding their safety.