Is hiring escorts without the involvement of a third party legal in India? Is escort service legal i

463 votes

From a legal perspective, escort agencies claim that they are dispatching these individuals to provide a social or conversational service, since prostitution laws often forbid taking payment for sex or communicating for the purpose of arranging a contract for sexual services.

Advertisements for escort agencies often carefully skirt the legal line, and avoid specifically offering prostitution or sexual services. This fact in turn is well-known to police and the political powers, who, where prostitution is illegal, usually prefer to act against more visible and problematic street prostitution. There are however, agencies that do go by these laws and
do not facilitate prostitution.
Occasionally local law enforcement will do stings with escort agencies, but the exchange of sex for money is often hard to prove.
...so yes it is 'Legal'.

In this sense Prostitution in India is legal, but a number of related activities, including owning or managing a brothel, pimping and pandering are crimes.
 

LawRato LawRato

520 votes

No, hiring escorts, even without the involvement of a third party, is not legal in India. Prostitution is illegal under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, which means that engaging in or facilitating prostitution in any way, including hiring an individual escort, is not legal. Even if the escort is working independently, the act of paying for sexual services is still considered illegal in India.

As for the existence of independent escort websites, it is possible that some of them may be operating in a legally grey area, or they may simply be making false claims about the legality of their services.

It is important to note that engaging in any form of prostitution in India can lead to legal consequences, including fines and imprisonment.

Advocate Sudershani Ray LawRato