M TULAJAPPA Vs. DIVISIONAL COMMISSIONER BANGALORE DIVISION BANGALORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition, the petitioner has sought the relief of certiorari for quashing of the order dated 6-6-1988 contained in Annexure-A to the writ petition and passed by the District Magistrate, Shimoga District-respondent 2 to the writ petition as well as quashing of the appellate order dated 30-11-1988, passed in Cinema Appeal No. 18 of 1988, dismissing the petitioner's appeal and affirming the order of the District Magistrate/licensing authority, rejecting the No Objection Certificate under Rule 27 of the Karnataka Cinemas (Regulation) Rules, 1971. The petitioner has further sought the directions to be issued to the authorities to grant No Objection Certificate for construction of permanent cinema on the site measuring 150" x 140" situated adjacent to Chitradurga Bhadravathi Road, as sought by the petitioner in his application moved before respondent 1.

(2.) The facts of the case in brief are that the petitioner moved an application for permission to construct a building for use as place for exhibiting cinemas and for No Objection Certificate vide, Rule 25 of the Rules contained in Chapter 4 of the Karnataka Cinemas (Regulation) Rules, 1971. The objections were called for by the licensing authority by publishing the notice as required under Rule 26 of the Rules. In pursuance thereof, the respondents filed objections. It may be mentioned here that while issuing notice calling for the objections, the licensing authority forwarded the copies of the applications to the Director of Town Planning, Bangalore, Director of Health and Family Planning, Bangalore, Executive Engineer, P.W.D., Shimoga and to Superintendent of Police, Shimoga. As mentioned earlier objections in response to the notice have been filed and one of the objections taken therein has been to the effect that in front of the proposed site and hereby there are educational institutions, namely Government Higher Primary School, Government Girls' High School, Primary School and Urdu School. It was alleged in the objections that if Cinema theatre was allowed to be constructed, the same is likely to cause disturbance in functioning of the school and the educational institutions and the same may have the effect of adversely affecting the interest, the attentive mind and morale of the students. The Director of Town Planning, Bangalore in response to the notice issued under Rule 26 informed the authority that the school buildings were situated within a diameter of 50 metres from the proposed site and as such the proposed cinema site is and has not been in conformity with the requirements of Rule 27 of the Cinema Rules, 1971. The other authorities namely, Director of Health and Family Welfare, Bangalore, the Executive Engineer, PWD, Shimoga and the Superintendent of Police, Shimoga and Channagiri Town Municipality informed the licensing authority that they have no objection to the grant of No Objection Certificate to the petitioner.

(3.) As appears from the order of the District Magistrate, the licensing authority Shimoga District, Magistrate, in order to have the correct idea of the position, on the spot conducted the inspection on 12-4-1988. The licensing authority after hearing the counsel for the petitioner as well as others, before whom, as appears from the order, a request had been made for relaxation of the restrictions as contained in Rule 27(1)(i)(a)(iii) of the rules, considered the matter and ordered as under: