Mumbai: The Bombay high court has asked the Multiplexes Owners Association to register a complaint with the police if multiplex staffers are threatened or assaulted over allowing outside food inside cinema halls. It refused any immediate hearing on the petition, days after a Pune multiplex’s staffers were thras-hed by Maharashtra Navn-irman Sena (MNS) activi-sts over the same issue.
The court asked the Association to read its earlier order, which specifically asked the state if it has any law or rules to regulate charges of food and beverages inside cinema halls but never gave any direction to stop multiplexes.
A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Anuja Prabhudesai was hearing a petition filed by the Multiplexes Owners Association, which is seeking a clarification on the HC’s comments on the need to regulate prices of food and beverages sold in multiplexes as mere observations and not final directions. It asked the court to mention in its order that the petition is still sub judice and that no restrictions have been imposed on them. The association submitted that some local parties, particularly the MNS, had “misconstrued” the court’s observations made last week as final orders, and thus, had gone about vandalising some multiplexes, and assaulting their staff members.
The court refused to issue any directions on the petition on Monday and said that the aggrieved parties were free to approach the police in case of any incidence of violence against them. The court said that there existed no question of a clarification on an order that it was yet to pass. “We have not yet passed any final order, where does the question of issuing directions or clarifications come? Those who are aggrieved can take a copy of our last order from the HC website and show it to whomever they want to,” the bench said. “If there is any attack or violence, such multiplexes are free to approach the police and seek appropriate
remedy.”
Last week, the court was hearing a civil PIL filed by Advocate Aditya Pratap opposing common citizens carrying outside food items inside movie theatres and multiplexes across the state. During the hearing, the court had asked the Maharashtra government why it could not regulate the prices of food items being sold at exorbitant rates in multiplexes across the state.
