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SC stays ₹15,000 payout for viewer who did not find trailer song in film
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed an order directing production house Yash Raj Films to pay a compensation of ₹15,000 to a viewer who felt cheated for not finding a song, publicised in the trailer of the 2016 Bollywood movie “Fan”, while watching the film at the theatre
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed an order directing production house Yash Raj Films to pay a compensation of ₹15,000 to a viewer who felt cheated for not finding a song, publicised in the trailer of the 2016 Bollywood movie “Fan”, while watching the film at the theatre.
The court stayed the order of the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC), which was passed on February 18, 2020, but questioned the production house for marketing the film with the song that wasn’t in the movie.
A bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian said, “The problem is that you (production house) show something else in the trailer which is not there in the movie. When the trailer is released it is a trailer of the movie. Why were you marketing your movie with the song when you knew it was meant to be for promotion of the film?”
The song in question was “Jabra Fan” composed by Vishal Dadlani along with Shekhar Ravjianii.
In 2016, Afreen Fatima Zaidi, a teacher from Maharashtra’s Aurangabad, heard the song and went to watch the film starring Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.
After the movie, a disappointed Zaidi filed a complaint before the district consumer court, which rejected her petition. She later approached the Maharashtra Consumer Commission, which held on September 22, 2017, that Yash Raj Films was liable to compensate Zaidi a sum of ₹10,000 along with litigation expenses of ₹5,000. This order was upheld in 2020 by the National Consumer Commission.
On Monday’s hearing, Yash Raj Films -- represented by advocate Naomi Chandra -- argued it was common practice in the industry to feature songs in trailers, and not in the final movie. “The order of the National Consumer court must be stayed as it has far reaching consequences on the entire film industry,” Chandra said.
“If there is a common practice in the industry that does not mean that the practice should continue,” the bench observed, issuing a notice to Zaidi and staying the consumer commission’s order.
The question to be decided is whether the producer of a movie can be said to be a service provider as a movie ticket is a contract between the person who buys it and the cinema hall owner who exhibits the film. “You need to give plausible explanation,” the bench said.
The order released on the court’s website did not specify when the matter will be heard next.
The National Consumer Commission, in its 2020 order, had agreed with Zaidi that there was reason for her to feel cheated and that the decision to not feature the trailer song in the movie amounted to “unfair trade practice”.
The commission had said that “if a person likes the song shown in the promo and based upon such liking decides to visit a cinema hall for watching the said movie for a consideration, he is bound to feel deceived, disappointed and dejected if the song shown in the promo is not found in the film. The practice of including a song in the promo of a film shown widely on TV Channels but excluding the said song while exhibiting the movie, in my opinion, constitutes an unfair trade practice”.
