Published on: 12 September, 2025 14:10 IST
The Kerala High Court has delivered an important judgment stating that people who avail sexual services in brothels are not “innocent customers” but active participants in exploitation and can be prosecuted under the law.
This ruling came in the case Sarath Chandran vs State of Kerala, where the police had raided a house in Thiruvananthapuram and found men paying money to have sex with women inside. The brothel charged ₹2,000 per hour, half of which went to the women and the rest to the brothel keeper. The accused argued that only the brothel owners or managers should be punished, not the customers.
Court clarified that:
Paying money for sex amounts to inducing prostitution. The person paying is not a mere customer but someone who encourages and sustains the illegal trade.
Sex workers are not commodities. Many of them are forced into prostitution through trafficking, coercion, or deception. Treating them as “service providers” denies their dignity and humanity.
The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITP Act) was designed to combat human trafficking and prevent the commercialization of sexual exploitation. Customers in brothels fall within the scope of this law.
The Court further explained that Section 5(1)(d) of the Act makes it a crime to cause or induce a person to engage in prostitution. By paying money in a brothel, a customer is in fact inducing the sex worker to perform the act, and therefore becomes liable for prosecution.
The judgment strongly disagreed with earlier views of some other courts which had treated customers as exempt from punishment. Justice Arun said that such reasoning goes against the purpose of the law, which is to protect victims and punish those who exploit them.
Major points from the Judgment:
- Customers in brothels can be prosecuted under the ITP Act.
- Payment for sexual services is legally seen as an act of exploitation.
- The law aims to punish exploiters and traffickers, not the victims.
- This ruling sends a strong message that buying sex in brothels is a crime, not a harmless act.
Kerala High Court has made it clear: those who pay for sex in brothels are breaking the law and can go to jail. The Court stressed that this is necessary to fight human trafficking, protect victims, and stop the cycle of exploitation.