AP High Court suspends GO on theatre ticket rates

Vijayawada: In a major setback to the state government, the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Tuesday suspended the GO 35 that fixed the rates of admission into film theatres in the state.

A single-judge bench of Justice C. Manavendranath Roy, which held a hearing on a batch of petitions filed by the film theatre owners challenging the GO 35,
suspended the GO as the state government had failed to comply with its earlier
orders.

The court in its earlier order directed the state government to set up a committee
headed by the home principal secretary to fix the rates of admission in the film
theatres. Similarly, the court also issued another order earlier directing the
state government not to fix rates of admission in theatres region-wise like a
municipal corporation, municipality, Nagar Panchayat and gram panchayat.

This judgment restores the earlier practice of fixing rates of admission.

Petitioners’ counsels Adinarayana Rao and Durga Prasad argued that the theatre owners were having the right to hike rates of admission into the film theatres and also said that the state government could not reduce the rates.

Earlier, the AP government issued GO 35 dated 08-04-2021 fixing rates of admission into film theatres based on geographical location ranging from a high of Rs 250 in premium class in multiplexes in municipal corporation area to a low of just Rs five in economy class in a gram panchayat in the state.

The state government has been maintaining that fixing rates of admission into film theatres is aimed to make the tickets affordable to all the people and also to
avoid a steep rise in tickets during the screening of benefit shows of films of
popular actors.