Harish Salve said he has materials to show that “dance bar is an animal in itself”, while acting for Maharashtra which defended its defiance of the Supreme Court’s order that had directed it to begin accepting bar licence applications, reported Indian Express.

Salve asked a bench of justices Dipak Misra and PC Pant, for additional time to produce materials highlighting the harmful sociological effects of dance bars, and submitted that the Maharashtra government will, in the interim, comply with the court’s 12 October order that had stayed its prohibitive law on dance bars.

The bench said: “We must remind the authority that the court order has to be respected. We have stayed your new law that prohibited dance performances. Now our order has to be complied with without any deviation.” “Are they (organisations) puritans? Dance performances do not take place only at these bars. Dance has been a respectable concept in India for centuries. You are calling it a social evil but this may only be a problem relating to law and order which can be regulated. We have already said no to obscenity so can you now prohibit them citing some social norms?”