"Sex Workers Should Not Be Penalised During Raids", Says High Court
NDTV
The judge was allowing a criminal original petition from an accused who was present along with sex workers when a raid was conducted. The petitioner was arrayed as Accused no. 5.
Sex workers should not be arrested or penalised whenever a brothel house is raided by police, the Madras High Court has ruled.
Citing a recent Supreme Court judgment, which had held that whenever any brothel is raided, sex workers should not be arrested or penalised or harassed or victimised and it is only the running of the brothel, which is unlawful, Justice N Satish Kumar quashed an FIR registered against a customer of the brothel house.
"In the case on hand, merely because the petitioner was in the place, which is alleged by the respondents (police) to be a brothel being run by some person, the petitioner cannot be fastened with any penal consequence and further, the act of the petitioner also cannot be said to be an act of pressurising the sex workers to commit acts, which they were not interested," the judge said.
The judge was allowing a criminal original petition from one Udayakumar, who was arrested from a brothel house in Chintadripet. The allegation against him was that when the police raided the massage centre, the petitioner was also present along with the sex workers and he was apprehended and arrayed as Accused No. 5.
