PANAJI
The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday partly allowed a criminal writ petition and quashed the FIR and charge sheet against four men accused in a 2015 prostitution racket case at a spa in Panaji, while refusing relief to a fifth petitioner who was found inside a massage cubicle during the police raid.
In its judgment, Justice Ashish Chavan held that the allegations in the police complaint and charge sheet did not make out a prima facie case against Berul Nazir, Shaikh Ahamed, Ahammed Raza, Kabir Khan under Section 370A(2) (exploitation of a trafficked person) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.
The petition had challenged the FIR, registered on May 19, 2015, and the subsequent charge sheet filed before the JMFC, ‘C’ Court, Merces.
As per the case details, a police raid was conducted on a Panaji-based salon and spa after receiving information that prostitution activities were allegedly being carried out under the guise of massage services. The police had arranged a decoy customer and sent him into the spa with marked currency notes worth Rs 3,500. After a pre-arranged signal was given, the raiding team entered the premises.
The order records that while the decoy customer was found in one massage cubicle, Petitioner No. 5 B Dadapir was found in another cubicle “in the process of having a massage”. A packet of condoms was also seized from that room. The first four petitioners, meanwhile, were found seated in the passage area of the spa.
Justice Chavan observed that, as far as the first four petitioners were concerned, the prosecution had not alleged that they had trafficked, exploited, induced, or procured any person for prostitution.
“The only role attributed to Petitioner Nos. 1 to 4 is that they were sitting in the passage area inside the spa,” the court noted, further stating that none of the ingredients necessary to attract offences under trafficking provisions of the IPC or the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act was made out against them.
“Taking the allegations in the charge-sheet at face value, the offence punishable under Section 370A(2) of IPC is not made out against the Petitioner Nos. 1 to 4,” the order said.
Relying on earlier rulings, including previous orders of the Goa bench, the court also observed that the provisions of the anti-trafficking law do not ordinarily cover a mere “customer”. However, the court declined to quash proceedings against Petitioner No. 5.
