The ticket price hike controversy surrounding Megastar Chiranjeevi’s blockbuster Mana Shankara Varaprasad Garu is threatening to snowball into a major legal and reputational setback.
The Telangana High Court has already expressed concern over the state government issuing a special memo permitting ticket price hikes, despite an earlier HC judgment that restricts the government from granting special hikes for individual films. Now, the issue has taken a sharper turn.
Advocate Paduri Srinivasa Reddy has filed a writ petition alleging that the special memo enabled the film’s producers to earn nearly ₹48 crore in excess revenue. The petitioner has urged the court to order recovery of this amount from the producers, arguing that the memo was issued in clear violation of the court’s earlier orders.
During the hearing, the Telangana High Court directed GST officials to submit detailed revenue data related to the ticket sales. The matter is scheduled for further hearing on February 3, and legal experts say the court could potentially order recovery of the excess collections if violations are established.
According to the petitioner, the disputed memo allowed ticket prices to go up to ₹600 (including GST) for special shows, along with hikes of ₹50 in single screens and ₹100 in multiplexes for a week. This allegedly resulted in ₹42 crore in excess collections within Telangana alone.
Ticketing platform BookMyShow and prominent distributor Dil Raju have been named as respondents in the petition.
With Mana Shankara Varaprasad Garu expected to finish its theatrical run slightly above ₹300 crore, it now remains to be seen whether the Telangana High Court will deduct the alleged excess ₹42 crore from the film’s final box-office tally.
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