A Supreme Court bench in a case filed by Ashirwad Films has held that different rates of entertainment tax on films cannot be imposed on the basis of language.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that different rates of entertainment tax on films cannot be imposed on the basis of difference in language alone.
The petitioner, Ashirwad Films, had approached the apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution challenging the validity of Andhra Pradesh Entertainment Tax Act 1939 under which the rate of entertainment tax on Telugu films was fixed at 10 per cent while on non-Telugu films it was 24 per cent. The apex court also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Representations to withdraw the tax were rejected by Andhra Pradesh Government.
According to the petitioner, discrimination on the basis of the language violates right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution.
The state government however opposed the petition on the grounds that the state government enjoyed great latitude in the field of imposition of entertainment tax.
A bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and Markandey Katju while holding the imposition of different taxes on the basis of the language of the movie as unconstitutional observed, ''We furthermore may take judicial notice of the fact and keeping in view that this case was tagged with other matter where it had been brought to our notice that some states have been making hostile discriminations at the instance of the distributor of the films produced in local languages. State of Andhra Pradesh imposed the said tax on the said basis which is per se discriminatory in nature.”
“We are therefore of the opinion that the impugned levy cannot be sustained being discriminatory in nature. It is struck down accordingly.Petitioner would thus be bound to pay tax at the rate at which entertainment tax has been levied in respect of Telugu films".
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