Madras HC: Exemption from entertainment tax for encouraging Tamil film titles cannot be extended merely on using Tamil single letter

The Madras High Court in the case G Sundararajan v The Secretary and others observed that the exemption from payment of entertainment tax is a concession granted by the government for promoting usage of Tamil language, wherein it is merely being used that the Tamil letter in the title of the movie is not a ground for claiming an exemption from the payment of entertainment tax.

The court stated that the exemption from payment of Entertainment tax given to a film is a concession granted by the Government for encouraging the film makers to use Tamil title for their films. Concession can never be claimed as the matter of right. The court is to extend concession, if the authorities are being satisfied and the conditions which are stipulated in the policy are also being complied with.

The bench headed by Justice SM Subramaniam in the case observed while hearing a petition by G Sundararajan, proprietor of Sri Vijalakshmi Films and the producer of the 2015 tamil movie “I”.

Before the court. It has been challenged by Sundararajan that the order which is passed by the Commissioner of Puducherry Municipality wherein rejecting his application for claiming exemption from payment of entertainment tax. It has also been claimed before the court that the word “I” in Tamil can be considered as exclamation and it also conveyed a definite meaning and thus, the decision which being taken by the authorities are erroneous.

However, it has been submitted by the Puducherry Municipality that the decision for granting exemption from payment of entertainment tax was taken by the government by way of a Government Order in 2007. The court granted exemption for movies with the titles of Tamil and Telugu. Therefore, a committee was also set up for ensuring as to whether the title is really in Tamil / Telugu or otherwise.

It has also been submitted before the curt that the committee had gone into the merits of the application moved and it has been decided that Sundararajan’s movie title could not be considered as a Tamil title and thus, the application was rejected by the court. Adding to it, it has been pointed out by the respondent that the exemption was being granted to the theatre owners and thus, Sundararajan being the distributor had no locus standi to claim exemption.

Therefore, the court also noted that unless there were allegations of malafide or violation of statutory provisions, the said court should not interfere with the decision taken the Expert Committee. The court while noting that the petitioner did not have any locus standi for claiming exemption and that there was no infirmity in the order of the municipality.

Accordingly, the court dismissed the petition.