Privacy of home cannot be breached in ‘immorality’ raids, rules PHC

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has ruled that constitutional protections, including the privacy of home, cannot be undermined through arbitrary police action in cases framed around alleged immorality, while granting bail to a man and two women arrested in Mansehra.

The order was passed by Justice Mudasser Ameer on two bail petitions filed by the accused, who were taken into custody by Mansehra City police on May 2, 2026, from a private house. They had been booked under Sections 371-A and 371-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which relate to selling and buying a person for the purpose of prostitution. The court directed each petitioner to furnish two surety bonds of Rs100,000.

According to the police version cited in the case, officers acted on a public complaint alleging that a rented house was being used for prostitution. During the raid, police said they found a man and a woman in one room and another man and woman in a separate room, while one male suspect fled the premises.

In its five-page detailed judgment, the bench held that the cited penal provisions are meant to address trafficking, sale, purchase and commercial exploitation of human beings for prostitution, and cannot be invoked merely because men and women were present inside a private home. The court noted that the first information report did not allege that the petitioners or anyone else had been involved in buying, selling, trafficking, hiring or commercially exploiting any person for prostitution.

The judgment further observed that no money was said to have been recovered, no customer was allegedly found negotiating any transaction, and no material suggesting organised prostitution or trafficking was secured in the raid. The bench said that even if the contents of the FIR were accepted at face value, they did not prima facie make out the essential ingredients of Sections 371-A or 371-B of the PPC.

“Sections 371-A and 371-B of PPC are intended to curb trafficking, sale, purchase and commercial exploitation of human beings for purposes of prostitution. Mere allegation of immoral conduct or mere presence of a male and female inside a private premises does not ipso facto attract the said provisions unless material exists showing buying, selling, hiring, trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation of a person,” the bench observed.

The bench also referred to an earlier judgment in a nearly identical matter, observing that even if a man and woman were found in an objectionable condition, the two PPC sections would not automatically apply unless there was material showing sale, purchase or hiring of a person for prostitution. It added that where allegations only concerned consensual intercourse or fornication, any prosecution could proceed only through a complaint under Section 203 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, not through registration of an FIR under Sections 371-A and 371-B.

Concerns over raid at private house

The court also raised legal and constitutional concerns over the manner in which the raid was carried out. It observed that the search of a private dwelling was conducted without obtaining a search warrant from a magistrate and without associating respectable persons of the locality.

“Such intrusion into a private home, particularly involving arrest of women, directly touches upon the constitutional guarantees relating to dignity of man, privacy of home and liberty protected under articles 4, 9 and 14 of the Constitution,” it added.

Referring to earlier superior court rulings, the bench noted that courts had repeatedly cautioned against unlawful intrusion into private life under the pretext of acting against prostitution or immorality. It cited an earlier ruling holding that a raid on private premises without a search warrant and without compliance with Section 103 of the CrPC amounted to unlawful intrusion prohibited by law.

The judgment also quoted another earlier observation that “no police official should be allowed immunity for degrading dignity and reputation of citizens through unlawful intrusion into private life”.