Aishwarya Rathore-
The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned an Allahabad High Court ruling from 2019 that imposed a blanket ban on the use of DJ services in Uttar Pradesh.
The Bench passed the order in the case brought by numerous DJ service providers who were challenging the ban. The Supreme Court ruled that DJ services can continue once the required licenses are obtained.
The Court had said that permission should be granted for DJ services if the applications are otherwise in accordance with
The Court said, “As and when any applications are preferred, the applications shall be considered by the concerned authorities; and if the same are otherwise in accordance with law, the permission may be granted despite the direction issued by the High Court.”
Individuals claiming to be professional DJ players had filed the petition arguing that the Petitioners in the High Court had complained of indiscriminate use of Loudspeakers in their neighbourhood, and therefore, the high court had made a mistake in issuing a general direction for the entire state.
The High Court issued a number of noise pollution-control directives when it issued the contested order in August 2019.
The Petitioners in the present case are aggrieved by direction no. (iii), as contained in the impugned order:
“Under the Rules, 2000, no permission for DJ shall be granted by the authority for the reason that noise generated by DJ is unpleasant and obnoxious level. Even if they are operated at the minimum level of the sound it is beyond permissible limits under the Schedule of the Rules, 2000. A DJ is made up of several amplifiers and joint sound emitted by them is more than thousand dB (A). They are serious threat to human health particularly children, senior citizens and patients admitted in the hospitals.”
It was further argued before the Court that the above-mentioned instruction was in violation of Article 19 of the Constitution because it prohibited the operation of DJs, even at a rudimentary level, effectively putting the Petitioners out of work.
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