CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has held that all the beauty and massage parlours and spas in the State should obtain licence from the local bodies concerned, before June 30.
Justice K Ravichandra Baabu gave a ruling to this effect, while passing orders on a batch of writ petitions from Shakeela of Neems Kerala Ayurvedic Clinic in Kalingarayanpalayam in Erode district and others, on April 4 last.
Earlier, the Additional Advocate-General submitted that a notification dated February 27 this year, has been issued under Sec. 373 of the Chennai City Municipal Corporation Act, as per which the beauty and massage parlours and spas are included in Schedule-VI for obtaining a trade license to be issued by the Greater Chennai Corporation. Similar notifications are issued in respect of all the municipalities and corporations in the State and therefore, the respective petitioners who are presently running or persons who propose to run such parlours, have to obtain the license from the competent authority.
Recording this, the judge disposed of the writ petitions with the direction to the petitioners to apply for the license before the authority concerned, by making necessary applications within a month. On receipt of such applications, the authority concerned shall dispose of the applications on merits and in accordance with law on or before June 30. The State through its Home secretary, shall issue paper publication inviting applications from the persons running the beauty parlour/spa/massage parlour, to apply for license with effect from June 30. Since the time to issue license is extended till June 30, the authorities shall maintain status quo as on today in respect of the parlours till June 30.
However, the order of status quo will not be a bar for the law enforcing authorities to take appropriate action against any of the parlours, if they receive any complaint against them of some illegal or unlawful activities allegedly being carried on in those places, clarified the judge.