Coldplay’s Chris Martin performs during the second day of the iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. September 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The Bombay High Court on Friday (January 10, 2024) dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought directions to the Centre and State to frame strict guidelines to curb black marketing and ticket scalping at major events and concerts on online ticket booking platforms. Dismissing the petition, a Division Bench of judges, Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar observed, “We find no merit in the prayer sought by the petitioner. The issues raised in the petition primarily pertain to policy and legislation, which lie in the exclusive domain of legislature and executive.” “In absence of a clear statutory framework mandating the reliefs prayed and given, is a legal position that courts cannot direct the legislature to enact and amend laws in particular manner. We are unable to accede to the petitioner’s prayer. However, in the event that the competent authority considers it necessary, they remain at liberty to take appropriate legislative or executive measures to address concerns highlighted by the petitioner,” the Bench observed.   Petitioner Amit Vyas, a practicing advocate of the High Court, had filed a police complaint against the online ticket booking platform, BookMyShow and other promoters of Coldplay concert in India. The petitioner who failed to secure online tickets of the concert alleged that the online ticket booking platform manipulated the sale of the Coldplay concert tickets that went live for sale on September 22, 2024, in the noon and was sold out within 30 minutes with lakhs of users showing in the waiting list. In no time, the same tickets appeared on Viagogo, a multinational ticket exchange and ticket resale platform and were sold at 30 to 40 times higher than the price mentioned on BookMyShow. The concert tickets were marred by blatant and rampant irregularities, illegalities, ticket scalping, ticket touting and black marketing in the sale of tickets, the petition said. The petitioner states that such unethical and illegal practices have deprived genuine consumers of their fundamental right to have equal opportunity of buying tickets and getting access to entertainment and live events have caused substantial economic loss to the public exchequer. Mr. Vyas stated that there have been various instances where tickets were sold in the secondary market at exorbitant prices and that the black market has plagued both offline and online ticket sales.   Black marketers are hoarding tickets by using bots and crowding out the genuine customers, the petition said. Within seconds, the bots automate the ticket-purchasing process and thus they secure a large volume of tickets within seconds.   These bots operate across multiple identities and IP addresses to circumvent restrictions set by primary ticket sellers (PTS) and primary ticket websites (PTW), Mr. Vyas alleged.  The petition had urged the high court for the constitution of an expert committee, led by a retired judge and including a cyber expert, to study and recommend measures for regulating online ticket sales. The petition had also sought the high court to direct the Centre and the Maharashtra government to form stringent guidelines to prevent black marketing of tickets for major events.  The British band Coldplay is slated to perform in Navi Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium on January 18, 19, and 21, 2025 and at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on January 25 and 26, 2025.  Published – January 10, 2025 12:44 pm IST