Preventing Immoral Traffic

In a significant ruling, the High Court of Kerala in Sarath Chandran v. State of Kerala [2025:KER:59585] has held that individuals who pay for sexual services in a brothel can be prosecuted for "inducing prostitution" under Section 5(1)(d) of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA).

A customer, who comes for engaging in sex in a brothel which is functioning in a notified as prohibited area, can be proceeded criminally and punished under Section 7 of the Immortal Traffic (prevention) Act, 1956 (IT Act), says Kerala High Court in Mathew v State of Kerala [ 2022(7) KHC 515].

The SC does not recognise sex work as a profession as the media widely reported. What the SC actually says is that notwithstanding the profession, every individual has a right to dignified life under the Indian Constitution and the constitutional protection that is given to all individual shall be kept in mind by the authorities while enforcing immoral traffic prevention law. In fact, what it puts forth is that the sex workers, who are despised and stigmatised by society, must be treated with full respect for their dignity and humanity, and not to abuse them verbally or physically, or to coerce them into sex work.

Prostitution is a consensual sexual activity in exchange for remuneration between two consenting adults. It is not per se an offence in India. The police and the people in India at large think that prostitution, particularly the one involving exchange of money, is a criminal activity. They act upon any incidence of prostitution and the prostitute in accordance with their misunderstanding. This in effect causes different sorts of human right violation and unlawful aggression. In fact, prostitution is not a criminal offence in India.