Restrain theatres from collecting exorbitant ticket prices, TN govt told

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court had passed directions to the Tamil Nadu Government to take a decision to stop the act of certain theatre owners who are collecting an excess amount of ticket fare than the government-fixed movie ticket cost.

"The State shall continue with the measures for monitoring of ticket collection. A suitable decision also is taken on the fate of excess charges found to have been collected by the cinema theatres. As of date, the excess charges are retained by the theatre owners, and the State only imposes a penalty for the violations detected, " Justice Anita Sumanth wrote.

The judge passed the orders on hearing the petition filed by G Devarajan. The petitioner appeared as party-in-person and prayed for a direction to the government to take action against the Chennai and Tamil Nadu cinema theatre owners who charged more than the actual cinema ticket rate fixed by the government, during the projection of Kabali, Singam-3 and Bhairava movies.

According to the petitioner, he already filed a petition in 2015 for a direction to punish theaters collecting excess fees for the movies Yennai Arindhaal, Puli, Vedalam, Thoongavanam, and Thanga Magan. After hearing him, the court passed an order to constitute a special team to monitor the aspects of such violations and inform the public at large through proper publicity.

Since that order was not followed scrupulously, the petitioner again filed this petition. When the matter was taken up, the government filed two counter affidavits which were already furnished in 2016 and 2017 before the Madras HC.

The government stated that it had constituted monitoring committees and imposed penalties on theaters for collecting additional ticket costs. The government further appraised the court about the details of the theaters which violated the rules and the penalty details.