 "Coldplay 2025 concert: Bombay HC rejects PIL seeking guidelines against black marketing, ticket scalping")
The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking guidelines to curb black marketing and ticket scalping at major events in the backdrop of the alleged foul play in the ticket sale process for British band Coldplay’s concert in Navi Mumbai this month.
A division bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar said the issues raised in the petition pertain to the legislative domain, and hence, the court cannot interfere.
“This is a legislative and executive decision. The court cannot interfere. The government is at liberty to formulate legislation addressing the concerns raised in the petition,” the court said.
The bench said that in the absence of a clear statutory framework mandating the reliefs sought in the petition, it cannot direct legislation to be enacted or laws to be amended in a particular manner.
“However, in the event that the competent authority (of the government) considers it necessary, they remain at liberty to take appropriate legislative or executive measures to address the concerns highlighted by the petitioner,” the court said.
It permitted the petitioner to make a representation before the competent authority.
The petitioner, Amit Vyas, an advocate, claimed there are several irregularities and illegalities during the sale of tickets for major events such as concerts, live shows and so on.
Vyas, in the petition, alleged that such irregularity and illegality were witnessed when tickets for the Coldplay concert were made available on the online platform BookMyShow.
The plea sought the court to issue stringent guidelines to prevent black marketing, touting and scalping of online tickets for major events.
It said that such illegal means were rampant during the IPL matches, the cricket World Cup matches in 2023 and the concerts of singers Taylor Swift and Diljit Dosanjh.
The petitioner alleged that organisers and ticketing partners exploit fans by listing the tickets on secondary websites at exorbitant prices.
He claimed such irregularities were witnessed when tickets were sold last month on BookMyShow for the Coldplay concert scheduled this month.
“The sale of online tickets was apparently manipulated by the BookMyShow platform in such a manner that even before mid-noon on the day the tickets were made available, people got logged out and were not allowed to access the website to purchase tickets,” the PIL alleged.
It claimed within minutes, the tickets for all three shows were shown as sold out on BookMyShow, though they were later found available on a secondary website at exorbitant prices.
Last year, Vyas also filed a complaint regarding this with the city police’s economic offences wing, and an inquiry is underway.
The lawyer said such illegal practices have deprived people of their fundamental right to have equal opportunity to access public entertainment.
The PIL said, “The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 mandate e-commerce entities to ensure fair and non-deceptive practices. However, in the absence of effective regulations in the ticketing sector, entities such as BookMyShow are not complying with the rules.”
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