MOAINUDDIN Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition filed under S. 482 of the Criminal P.C. for quashing the proceedings in Calendar Case No. 208 of 1985 on the file of the XII Metropolitan Magistrate, Hyderabad.

(2.) The petitioners were charge sheeted by the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Malakpet division, Hyderabad under Ss. 4(1), (2)(c) and 8 of the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 1956, hereinafter referred to as "the Act". In the charge sheet filed against the petitioners it is alleged that the 1st petitioner was running a brothel in his residential house, that on 1 3/08/1985 he called three pleasure-seekers inside his house, that he produced petitioners 2 to 4, aged 35, 28 and 20 years respectively and offered them for sexual intercourse in consideration of payment of money, that petitioners 2 to 4 exposed their bodies and were making indecent gestures towards those three males for the purpose of prostitution, and that at about that time the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Malakpet division raided the house of the 1st petitioner and arrested all the petitioners.

(3.) Sri K. Rama Sarma, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners submits that Ss. 4 and 8 of the Act are ultra vires of Art. 14 of the Constitution of India, in that the male partner in the evil doing or act is spared from any attack under the Act. I however find it difficult to accede to his submission. S. 4 of the Act makes no distinction between a male and a female. Both male and female are made punishable under S. 4 of the Act.