Now Reading: Chhattisgarh High Court quashes case against consenting sex worker
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Chhattisgarh High Court quashes case against consenting sex worker
The Chhattisgarh High Court has quashed a criminal case against a sex worker, holding that police must not take action against adult sex workers acting with consent. A Division Bench of Chief…
The Chhattisgarh High Court has quashed a criminal case against a sex worker, holding that police must not take action against adult sex workers acting with consent. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal ruled that continuing proceedings would amount to harassment prohibited by the Supreme Court.
The court was hearing a petition to quash an FIR under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. The petitioner said she was not present at Hotel Hayat, Raipur, during a police raid and was falsely implicated. The court noted no specific allegations beyond her status as a sex worker, and found the material did not show she committed any independent offence.
Relying on the Supreme Court's Budhadev Karmaskar judgment, the court said sex workers are entitled to equal protection of law, and voluntary sex work is not illegal. It directed that in such cases, police must not arrest, penalise or harass the worker. The court allowed the petition and quashed the case.
Indian Opinion Analysis
This ruling reinforces the Budhadev Karmaskar framework, which decriminalised sex work for consenting adults but left brothel-keeping illegal. The key practical question is how police distinguish voluntary sex work from trafficking during raids. Without clear protocols, sex workers still risk arrest and stigma. The next signal to watch is whether the Chhattisgarh police issue standard operating procedures consistent with this judgment, as some states have done. A failure to do so could lead to more such quashing petitions, burdening high courts.
Source: livelaw.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
