VIJAYAWADA
The Andhra Pradesh High Court (HC) has restrained the State government from going ahead with the sale of cinema tickets through an exclusive portal which it planned to launch, till July 27. A Division Bench led by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and consisting of Justice D.V.S.S. Somayajulu issued an interim order to that effect on Friday.
They said the final hearing would be held on the above date and a status quo is required till then to address all the questions of law raised in the writ petitions.
It may be noted that the Multiplex Association of India, Bigtree Entertainment Private Limited (BookMyShow) and Vijayawada Exhibitors’ Association have challenged the proposed launch of a government-run ticket-booking platform, saying that it will render private ticket booking businesses commercially unviable. The main argument is that the ticket aggregators have to do their business subject to a whole lot of terms and conditions laid down by the government, which deprive them of a level playing field.
The very action of the government in coming up with a portal of its own will infringe on the aggregators’ freedom to trade enshrined in the Constitution, the petitioners said.
In its order, the HC said the issues raised by the petitioners, like whether the State under the AP Cinema Regulation Act, 1955 has the power to regulate the incidental services being rendered to the cine-goers by third party aggregators, and whether they (the petitioners) can be asked to sell tickets only through the gateway provided by the AP State Film, Television and Theater Development Corporation, needed to be discussed at length.
While observing that a prima facie case has been made out, the HC said greater harm will be caused to the petitioners if the interim order is not granted at this stage, and postponing the issues till the final adjudication will cause no loss to the government or to the cine-goers.
