Movie Ads Row: Karnataka High Court Stays District Consumer Commission's Order Against PVR, Says It Can't Direct How Theatres Should Run

The Karnataka High Court on Monday by way of interim relief stayed till March 27, the order passed by Bangalore District Consumer Commission holding PVR Cinemas liable to pay compensation to a complainant for showing long Ads instead of screening movies at announced time.

A single judge, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order while hearing a petition filed by Multiplex Association of India.

It said, “The Consumer forum accepts the plea of petitioner and traverses the complaint and answers the complaint as if it has jurisdiction akin to a public interest petition. It indulges in a discourse about how a movie show should be run and directs that the theatres should not project advertisements, as it would become unfair trade practice. All these directions of the consumer forum are on the face of it without jurisdiction."

Dismissing the contention of the government that an appelate remedy is available to the petitioners before the State Consumer Forum, the court said, “While that may be that, an appeal remedy will not halt or put shackles on the hand of this court in exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 of Constitution. More so, when it comes across a case where the concerned fora or court has acted in blatant violation of jurisdiction.”

Following which it said “Therefore there shall be an interim order to stay as prayed for till the next date of hearing.” Court then issued notice to the Respondent-State and the Complainant Abhishek M R.

During the hearing Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for the petitioner argued that the case raises a nationwide issue. "Mischief mongers have already started creating problems against us. The council has no jurisdiction to do this,” he said.

The Complainant had booked three tickets for the movie "Sam Bahadur" in PVR Cinemas in Bangalore for himself and his family paying Rs. 825.66. The movie was supposed to start at 4:05 pm and the duration of the movie was 2 hours 25 mins. But he sat for 25 minutes more.

Before the forum the complainant had submitted that he faced losses that could not be calculated in terms of money. It was asserted that playing the movie at a time that was beyond the scheduled time amounted to deficiency in service by the Opposite Parties.

On going through the complaint and the averments the forum had said the “Opposite Parties had violated the government order as per which the theatres could play 10 mins of public service announcements and welfare schemes of Central Government and State Government." Moreover, it was held that the theatre owners were required to concentrate on the timings as were mentioned in the tickets and in the present case, the movie should have commenced at 4:05 pm as was mentioned in the tickets bought by the Complainant. It was stated that the advertisements should have been telecasted by the theatre authorities before 4:05 pm and not after that.

The Commission had held that the Complainant raised the issue with a good cause as many people must have faced the same issue on the day the movie was to be played in the theatre.

Thus the Commission had directed the theatre authorities to mention actual movie time on the cinema tickets to be issued to the public at large. Furthermore, PVR Cinemas and PVR Inox Ltd. were directed to pay Rs.20,000 to the complainant for mental agony and inconvenience along with Rs.8,000 as litigation expenses. Furthermore, PVR Cinemas was directed to pay an amount of Rs. 1,00,000 as Punitive damages to be deposited in the Consumer Welfare Fund.

Case Title: Multiplex Association of India & ANR AND State of Karnataka & Others

Case No: WP 5877/2025

Appearance: Mukul Rohatgi and Uday Holla SAs, Sahil Narang, Nikhilesh Rao, Karun Mehta, Madhavam Sharma, Avinash Balakrishna, Ayushman Kacker, Vidush Sinha and Yugam Taneja