The High Court of Bombay has postponed its judgement on a public interest litigation against BookMyShow and other promoters of a Coldplay concert set to be held in Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium.
It is asking for assistance from the state government of Maharashtra to establish strict regulations to prevent a black market of tickets.
Lawyer Amit Vas filed the complaint after failing to get tickets for the shows on January 18, 19, and 21.
He accused BookMyShow of committing organised crime, cheating, and criminal breach of trust, and is seeking the establishment of measures to address ticket touts.
Senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas is representing Vyas and argued before a division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar yesterday (Thursday).
Dwarkadas stated that it is the police’s duty to ensure tickets are not sold in the black market so that the public is not disadvantaged.
“It is an illegal sale as it is sold by scalpers at a high premium,” Dwarkadas said.
“There has to be some form of protection of the public as people are left at mercy of private entities. There are bots which buy the tickets through secondary sellers even before the public gets access to them.
“The primary sellers of the tickets of the said event are not cooperating with the Economic Offences Wing.
“We must have a system in place to ensure that such black-marketing does not occur in future.”
The bench assured Dwarkadas that it will ask the state to take action but insisted that it was not able to engage in policy making alone.
It then concluded the hearing and reserved its verdict.
It is not the first time complaints have been voiced around Coldplay on-sales and BookMyShow in India. Fans that failed to get their hands on tickets were frustrated after the ticketing platform crashed, followed by tickets appearing on resale sites at inflated prices. In September, BookMyShow distanced itself from resellers and said: “BookMyShow has no association with any ticket selling / reselling platforms such as Viagogo and Gigsberg or third-party individuals for the purpose of reselling of Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres World Tour 2025 in India.”
BookMyShow also submitted its own criminal complaint with the Mumbai authorities.
In October, BookMyShow’s chief operating officer was questioned by Mumbai police, after an investigation was launched into the complaints around the Coldplay ticket sales.
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