the Act deals with punishment for keeping a brothel or allowing premises to be used as a brothel. Section 4 of the Act deals with punishment for living on the earnings of the prostitution. Section 5 of the Act deals with procuring, inducing or taking persons for the sake of prostitution. Obviously, the allegation against the petitioner/A.9 is not that of either running brothel house or procuring women for the purpose of prostitution or that he is living by earning money on prostitution. He was booked along with other accused only as a customer of the flesh trade. Therefore, the said Sections are not applicable to him. It is interesting to note that none of the other penal provisions in the Act either describe him as an offender. Therefore, there is any amount of force in the submission of learned counsel for petitioner that a customer to the flesh trade cannot be treated as an offender under the Act. This aspect is no more res integra and we are fortified by atleast two judgments of this High Court viz., Goenka Sajan Kumar vs. The State of A.P .[1] and Z . Lourdiah Naidu vs. State of Andhra Pradesh[2] . In these two cases, the petitioners were admittedly the customers to a brothel house. Consequently, the proceedings against them were quashed holding that the provisions of the Act cannot be invoked for prosecuting them.
