13 Sep 2023
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked Chandigarh to follow the same guidelines as spas in Delhi as there has been an increasing number of immoral trafficking cases being reported in the city spas.
According to the bench of Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu, there are 71 spa centres in Chandigarh and since 2018, there have been 16 cases registered under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, of which five cases were reported in 2023. The city has no regulations for operating spas and hence was asked to follow the guidelines for the operation of the spa/massage centres in Delhi, as notified on August 18, 2021.
In a recent case, Nagaraj T, a Sector-35 spa owner, was booked under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 on July 12, 2023. During a raid, the police found two out of the eight rooms with a ‘busy’ signboard and on investigation it was found that two girls and the people inside were in an objectionable situation. In the same spa, there was another room with ‘staff room’ written where five more girls were found. As per the FIR, the girls told the police that they were hired for a spa job, but instead were pushed into prostitution. There are 16 similar cases filed in Chandigarh in the last five years.
