The Tamil Nadu government on Friday, October 20, informed the Madras High Court of having asked the Director General of Police (DGP) to formulate a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) at the earliest for regulating public events such as music concerts, audio or trailer release of new movies and the release of the movies in order to maintain public order and avoid untoward incidents.
Appearing before Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bhartha Chakravarthy, State Public Prosecutor (SPP) Hasan Mohamed Jinnah said that he had written to the Home Secretary P. Amudha recently and requested the government to take urgent action with respect to formulating the SOP. Subsequently, the Home Secretary had requested DGP Shankar Jiwal to take necessary action in this regard.
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The SPP also produced a copy of the communication sent by the Home Secretary to the DGP wherein it was stated that “this may be treated as most immediate as the honourable Chief Minister has given specific instructions to develop and issue the Standard Operating Procedure immediately.” The DGP was also instructed to communicate the SOP, after its formulation, to all local bodies, fire and rescue services and highways and health departments.
The first Division Bench led by the Chief Justice recorded the submissions made by the SPP and disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by S. Ayyaa of Tirunelveli. The petitioner had sought a direction to the State government to regulate the special shows and playing of trailers of movies in which popular stars had acted. The litigant had complained of public annoyance caused by the fans of such actors.
The petitioner had stated that the fans pay exorbitant amount of money to purchase the movie tickets, consume liquor, ride their motorcycles dangeously to the theatres, pour milk on the cut-outs of the actors, climb up buses on the roads and dance on the roof of those vehicles, damage the furniture inside the theatres and so on, much to the annoyance of the general public and therefore, it was necessary to regulate their behaviour.
The litigant told the court that some fans had lost their lives during such events putting their families to untold misery. “There is a need to change the hero worship culture in Tamil Nadu,” the petitioner said and insisted on regulating such events.
