'Vulgar' temple dances: Regretful, irate Madras HC refuses to allow 'Adal Padal'

Justice PN Prakash expressed regret over the earlier orders.
'Vulgar' temple dances: Regretful, irate Madras HC refuses to allow 'Adal Padal'
'Vulgar' temple dances: Regretful, irate Madras HC refuses to allow 'Adal Padal'
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Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed petitions seeking to conduct 'Adal Padal' (dance and song) programme during temple festivals at various places in Erode and Namakkal district.

Justice PN Prakash dismissed all the six writ petitions. The petitions were filed by various organizers of temple festivals in Erode and Namakkal Districts seeking a direction to the respective police stations to give protection and permission to conduct 'Adal Padal'.

Justice PN Prakash expressed regret over the earlier orders, stating, “I have no hesitation in recording not only my anguish, but also my profound regret for having passed those orders. I had passed those orders placing implicit faith in the representation of the counsel.  One has to learn from previous bad experiences and I am willing to.”

The judge had gone through the status report filed by the Superintendent of Police, Namakkal and had viewed the clippings of one such Adal Padal (dance & song) programme on the video cassettes. After watching the same, everyone had no option but to unanimously agree that it surpassed the very definition of the words “obscenity” and “vulgarity”, said the judge.

Normally writ petitions are filed seeking a direction to the police to permit organizers of temple festivals to conduct cultural programmes in connection with the temple festivities in public. The ongoing trend is that after giving a representation to the local police, the organizer would file a writ petition seeking a direction to the respondent police to consider his representation and the High Court would issue directions as prayed for. 

While this was going on for quite some time, the High Court noticed a spurt in such writ petitions from Namakkal District which aroused suspicion in the mind of the High Court and Justice PN Prakash before whom the petitions had come for hearing directed the Superintendent of Police, Namakkal District, to be present before the Court to explain what really happens at the ground level.

The Judge, after quoting a Supreme Court order which stated that the Courts should not interfere in the decision making process of the police in matters relating to law and order, said that it should be best left at the hands of the executive to take decisions on merit on a case-to-case basis in the present order.

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