Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking guidelines to curb black marketing and ticket scalping at major events. The PIL was filed by a lawyer Amit Vyas alleging foul play during the online ticket sales of British band Coldplay scheduled in Navi Mumbai later this month.
A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar dismissed the PIL observing that the issues raised in the petition pertains to legislative domain and hence the court cannot interfere. “This is a legislative and executive decision. Court cannot interfere. The government is at liberty to formulate a legislation addressing the concerns raised in the petition,” the bench said.
It added that the in the absence of a clear statutory framework mandating the reliefs sought in the petition, the court cannot direct for a legislation to be enacted or for 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 underlined.
The Court has also permitted Vyas to make a representation before the competent authority raising his grievance.
The plea highlighted several irregularities and illegalities during the sale of tickets for major events like concerts and live shows. Such instances were witnessed when tickets for the Coldplay concert were made available on the BookMyShow platform on September 22 last year and sought direction to the State government and Centre to create regulations to address ticket scalping, touting and black marketing for major events. It sought setting up of a committee to frame guidelines to plug the “vacuum in law” exploited by scalpers.
Senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas submitted that considering that the State government has imposed entertainment tax on the organisers of the event, it is its duty to ensure that the tickets are not sold in the black market and the public is not cheated.
The plea urged the court to issue directions to booking platforms such as BookMyShow and event promoters Live Nation Entertainment, Big Tree Entertainment, and Viagogo Entertainment, among others, to cooperate with expert and monitoring panels. Dwarkadas submitted that the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police have initiated the probe but the third parties involved in the case were not cooperating.
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The court has then suggested that Vyas approach the State with his grievance stating that it was the government's domain to frame policies. “You are inviting us to enter into the policy making domain. You are also asking us to begin a regulatory measure. We will ask the state to consider grievances. We have our own well defined ambit,” it had said.
In September last year, within minutes, the tickets of all three shows were shown as sold out on the BookMyShow portal even as tickets were later found available on a secondary website at exorbitant prices. Vyas had last year also filed a police complaint against the same with the city police’s economic offences wing and an inquiry is on. Vyas in the plea said such illegal practices have deprived people from their fundamental right to have equal opportunity to access public entertainment.
