The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra government to grant licences to dance bar owners within 10 days after they comply with a clutch of modified guidelines. Appearing for the Maharashtra government, additional solicitor general Pinky Anand said police were insisting on being supplied live CCTV footage of performances because they believed that dance bars, which operated till the wee hours, were centres for many other activities and there was a need to keep a constant watch on them.

The SC bench asked police to keep men posted in these dance bars if they feared anything untoward would happen there. "But we cannot permit you to insist on CCTV coverage of the performance area as it will be violating the right to privacy of the patrons who may not like their pictures to be flashed all over, especially to a police station," it said.