A 30-year-old man in Bengaluru won Rs 65,000 in compensatory damages after he sued PVR Cinemas, INOX and BookMyShow for “wasting” 25 minutes of his time by running lengthy commercials before the screening of a movie and causing “mental agony”.
In his complaint, Abhishek MR alleged that in 2023 he booked three tickets for the movie ‘Sam Bahadur’ for a 4.05 pm show. He claimed the movie was supposed to end by 6.30 pm after which he planned to return to his work. But to his utter surprise, the movie began at 4.30 pm after advertisements and trailers of movies were streamed, which “wasted nearly 30 minutes of the time”.
“The complainant could not attend other arrangements and appointments which were scheduled for the day, has faced losses that cannot be calculated in terms of money as a compensation,” the complaint read.
He said that his “precious time” was wasted and the action was “clearly within the meaning of unfair trade practice as they wrongly communicated the show timings to take undue advantage by playing advertisements”.
The consumer court, asserting “time is considered as money”, directed PVR Cinemas and INOX to compensate for the loss incurred by the complainant. PVR and INOX were directed to pay Rs 50,000 for unfair trade practice and wasting the time of the complainant, Rs 5,000 for mental agony and Rs 10,000 for “filing the complaint and other reliefs”. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs one lakh on PVR Cinemas and INOX.
The court, however, said that BookMyShow was not liable to pay any claims as it is a ticket-booking platform and has no control over the streaming time of advertisements.
What The Consumer Court Said
The court, in its February 15 order, said that “no one has the right to gain benefit out of others’ time and money”, stressing that “25-30 is not less to sit idle in the theatre and watch whatever the theatre telecasts”.
“It is very hard for busy people with tight schedules to watch unnecessary advertisements,” it added.
What PVR-INOX Said
In their defence, PVR Cinemas and INOX said obligated under the law to screen certain Public Service Announcements (PSA) to spread awareness.
However, the court said that the PSAs should be screened within 10 minutes before the beginning of the film and during the interval period before the start of the second half of the movie package.
The court also directed PVR Cinemas and INOX to deposit Rs one lakh to the consumer welfare fund. They are asked to pay the amount within 30 days from the date of order.