Mumbai Police Close BookMyShow Enquiry: No Evidence Found In Coldplay Ticket Row

Mumbai: The Mumbai police have closed its preliminary enquiry (PE) against BookMyShow for allegedly using ticket bots to manipulate the ticketing process in the recently concluded Coldplay concert ‘fake tickets’ row. The inquiry was closed after no evidence of manipulation was found during the investigation, senior official confirmed to The Free Press Journal.

In September, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police had lodged a preliminary Enquiry (PE) in the matter after a city-based lawyer, Amit Vyas, lodged a complaint with the EOW against BookMyShow, Live Nation Entertainment, and their top management accusing them of irregularities and illegalities while selling the tickets for the Coldplay. The British rock band's concert was organised in Navi Mumbai last month.

According to the complaint, the firms allegedly logged out genuine fans from the ticketing platform, artificially inflating the digital queue through the use of automated bots. This allegedly stopped actual purchasers from buying tickets for the concert, sparking widespread anger among Coldplay fans.

“During the course of the probe we did not find any evidence to link that the ticket sales were manipulated. On the point that patrons paid different amounts for the tickets, the probe found that BookMyShow had sourced the ticket sale to certain third party vendors and those who bought the tickets through such platforms could have paid higher amounts but that too becomes a case of a civil liability. Additionally, this matter does not constitute a violation of your fundamental rights, nor was anyone forced to buy tickets through coercion.This does not suffice as an ingredient for a criminal complaint. Also while making the payments, the customer agrees to the amount so the contractual liability covered under civil litigation is also limited,” said the senior official

“We found the nature of the complaint to be similar to booking an online cab. The patron is aware of the surge in prices at certain periods of the day but despite that if she/he books the cab through aggregators; this ordinarily won’t amount to a cheating case under the criminal jurisprudence since the terms and conditions are agreed by the user,” the officer explained.

Ordinarily if the PE concludes a cognisance offence, a FIR is registered otherwise the PE is closed for want of actionable evidence. “..However since the case has been closed as a matter of procedure, we have to informed the complainant that the case has been closed for want of evidence,” said another officer.

FPJ contacted Amit Vyas, who stated that he had not been informed by EOW through any email, phone, or message that the preliminary inquiry had been closed. According to Amit Vyas, he has not been given any updates regarding this matter. He expressed disappointment over the closure of the PE.

During the course of the investigation, the EOW had Anil Makhija, the COO of Big Tree Entertainment, BookMyShow’s parent company, to join the probe.

Last month, the Bombay High Court (HC) junked the PIL filed by advocate Amit Vyas, seeking guidelines to curb black marketing and ticket scalping at major events. In his petition, Vyas had alleged several irregularities and illegalities during the sale of tickets for major events such as concerts, live shows and others. He had claimed to have witnessed the same when tickets for the Coldplay concert were sold by Book my show.

A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar, while dismissing the petition, stated that it found no merit in the petitioner's requests. The issues raised in the petition were considered to be matters of policy and legislation, which fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the legislature and the executive. The court further explained that without a clear statutory framework to support the requested relief, and given the established legal principle that courts cannot compel the legislature to pass or amend laws in a specific way, it could not grant the petitioner’s requests. However, the court noted that if the relevant authorities deem it necessary, they are free to take suitable legislative or executive actions to address the concerns raised by the petition.