HYDERABAD: Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy of the Telangana High Court has directed the police not to interfere with the operation of Somara Wellness Private Limited, which runs three spa centres in Hyderabad. This directive comes in response to a writ petition filed by the company’s director Saurabh Kumar.
The writ petition seeks a declaration from the court that the actions of the respondent police, involving frequent interference in the daily operations of the the spa, are both illegal and arbitrary. The petitioner’s grievance centres around the police’s recurring disruptions of their business activities and their insistence on closing the spa centres without adhering to due legal procedures.
During the proceedings, the petitioner’s counsel informed the court that a batch of similar writ petitions had been previously filed before the same court, and these cases were disposed of with a common order. The government pleader did not dispute this fact.
In 2021, a batch of writ petitions filed by various spa centres led to the court permitting the petitioners to continue operating their massage centres under specific conditions. These conditions included maintaining a register with customer visit dates, names, verifiable addresses, and phone numbers. This information would enable the police to contact customers in the event of requests for assistance from the opposite sex. Additionally, police officers not below the rank of sub-inspector of police were authorised to periodically verify the records.
The court further directed that the petitioners should not keep the main doors of their premises closed during working hours. However, subject to these conditions, the petitioners were allowed to carry on their business, provided they took all necessary precautions to prevent any immoral activities under the guise of providing whole-body massages.