The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed government officials concerned to look into a complaint accusing many cinema theatres of having screened as many as six shows a day beginning from 5 a.m. during big releases such as Sivakarthikeyan-starrer Seemaraja , Vikram-starrer Samy 2 and Arvind Swami-starrer Chekka Chivantha Vaanam.
Call for action
Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad ordered that the officials should initiate suitable action against the theatres under the Tamil Nadu Cinemas (Regulation) Act of 1955 if the complaint was found to be true. Earlier, the judge recorded the submission of Government Pleader T.N. Rajagopalan that theatres could screen only four shows a day.
Only on public holidays and festival days are they allowed to screen one more show after obtaining prior permission from the district administration.
Under no circumstances, the theatres could screen more than five shows on any given day, the Collectors of Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Coimbatore told the court through individual status reports filed by them.
The reports had been filed in response to a public interest litigation petition filed by an advocate clerk G. Devarajan accusing many theatres of playing as many as six shows.
He relied upon information downloaded from popular cinema ticket booking websites to prove his assertion and submitted those materials before the court too.
