Business partner puts Mahesh Babu in soup

Hyderabad: Tollywood actor G Mahesh Babu is now into new controversy and it is alleged that his partner, Asian Pictures head Sunil Narang, has got bank loans with wrong registration documents. He has reportedly obtained huge bank loans by submitting fake documents in different banks. When they got the complaints regarding it, the bank managements have ordered for an internal enquiry on the documents submitted by his partner.

Meanwhile, Mahesh Babu’s AMB Cinemas in Gachibowli was issued show-cause notices by the GST Rangareddy anti-evasion team officials for violating the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules and regulations. The officials found that the AMB Cinema management had not passed on the benefits of the GST to moviegoers as per the Union government’s directives. They said that the theatre management had pocketed Rs 35 lakh in January 2019 while violating the anti-profiteering clause in the CGST Act.

The GST Rangareddy Commissionerate has forwarded the case to state screening committee of the GST anti-profiteering wing. The Central government had reduced the GST on movie tickets with effect from January 1, 2019. Whereas the AMB Cinemas had not reduced the ticket prices even after GST on movie tickets priced Rs 100 and above brought down from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. They also found that the AMB Cinemas reduced the prices in February which has to be reduced since January 1. 

The officials said the theatre management has to pay back the profit which was collected from the moviegoers in January to Consumer Welfare Fund immediately. Further the GST officials said that action will be taken against the management if they fail to deposit Rs 35 lakh to the Consumer Welfare Fund.

Reacting on the show-cause notices of the GST officials, the theatre management said that they did not get any notice from the officials. They said that they have reduced their ticket prices when they came to know that other cinema theatres have reduced the price from Rs 200 to Rs 185 at the end of January. Further they said that since the state government has not fixed the ticket price and not issued any orders for theatres, the managements approached the High Court.

They also said that as the Telangana High Court has fixed the price Rs 170 with an addition of Rs 30 as GST, it again make the ticket price at Rs 200. They alleged that the profiteering figures are inflated from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 35 lakh by the GST officials.