The Bombay High Court recently held that merely being present during a crime pertaining to obscene acts in public, which also falls under the purview of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working Therein) Act, 2016, cannot be considered unless a specific role is attributed to the accused.

With this, the high court quashed an FIR against two men booked during a raid on a dance bar in January 2017. As per a report in The Indian Express, the court held that neither were the two involved in obscene acts nor did they abet any. A division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice Manish Pitale passed the ruling on a plea by the two accused men from Mumbai, who sought the FIR against them to be quashed.