A consumer court in India has awarded a man Rs 65,000 (BD282) after he sued a movie theatre chain for 'wasting his time' by showing 25 minutes of ads before the movie.
30-year-old Abhishek from Bengaluru sued PVR and INOX( Indian multiplex movie theatre chains), claiming that they had wasted his time by showing 25 minutes of advertisements before the movie actually started playing.
According to reports, Abhishek had booked a ticket for the 4.05 pm show to watch the Indian movie Sam Bahadur. He was under the impression that the movie would start at 4.05 pm and end at 6.30 pm. So, he made plans for after the movie was over.
But the movie theatre played 25 minutes of advertisements and only started the movie at 4.30 pm. This meant the movie also ended late, which, according to the complaint Abhishek submitted to the consumer court, led to him missing important appointments.
“The complainant could not attend other arrangements and appointments which were scheduled for the day and has faced losses that cannot be calculated in terms of money as compensation,” the complaint read.
The consumer court ruled in favour of Abhishek citing "unfair trade practices". Emphasising that "time is money", the court ordered PVR and INOX to compensate the complainant with Rs 65,000.
They also fined PVR and INOX with Rs 1 lakh, which were to be deposited into the Consumer Court Welfare Fund within 30 days.
Abhishek had also included BookMyShow in his complaint, but the Court dismissed that case, claiming that BookMyShow was an online ticket-booking platform and had no control over the duration of advertisements.
&uuid=(email))