The court reiterated that the theatres shall be filled only upto 50% seating capacity.
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, on Monday, said that the Tamil Nadu state government can consider increasing the ticket prices in cinema theatres across the state to make good the revenue loss suffered by theatre owners due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed against the government of Tamil Nadu’s order allowing 100% occupancy in cinema theatres ahead of Pongal season
The Madras High Court had, a few days ago, ordered that cinema theatres shall not allow more than 50% of its seating capacity to be filled while screening films due to COVID-19 restrictions. This after the state government had given permission for cinema theatres to fill 100% of the seating capacity ahead of Pongal season after requests from several theatre owners, distributors and producers. Actor Vijay had, in fact, visited Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in his residence to urge 100% occupancy to be allowed and actor Silambarasan also tweeted his request. Both the actors have their films lined up for release ahead of Pongal.
The decision to allow 100% occupancy by the state government was criticised by people at large and the Ministry of Home Affairs also wrote to the state Chief Secretary to revoke the order. The MHA said that the state government’s order was contradictory to the union government’s guidelines on movie theatre occupancy issued in October 2020. Following this, the Madras High Court had reiterated that only 50% seats shall be filled in theatres till January 11 and had expressed belief that the state government will reconsider its decision. The state government followed suit by revoking the order and ordering that status quo shall be maintained until further notice.
Reiterating the state government’s order allowing only 50% seats to be filled, the Madurai bench of Madras High Court ordered that the theatre owners shall be responsible for crowd control outside the theatres. A bench consisting of Justice MM Sundresh and Justice S Ananthi added that the theatres can increase the number of shows in a day and that the state government can consider increasing the ticket prices to make good the losses suffered by the owners.
Source: The News Minute