SC overturns ruling requiring Yash Raj Films to reimburse for removing a song from the film “Fan”
On Monday, the Supreme Court granted Yash Raj Films’ appeal against a National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) order directing the production company to compensate a customer who felt wronged by the removal of a song from the Bollywood film “Fan” by paying Rs 10,000 plus litigation costs.
The NCDRC ruling was overturned by a court of Justices P. S. Narasimha and Aravind Kumar.
The panel said, “We have granted the appeal.”
The ruling by the top court was made during the hearing of an appeal filed by Yash Raj Films Pvt Ltd, which contested an NCDRC verdict that had maintained the State Commission’s 2017 order to compensate complainant Afreen Fatima Zaidi with Rs 10,000 in addition to Rs 5,000 for legal fees.
After seeing the Shah Rukh Khan movie trailers, the complainant made the decision to see the movie with her family. Zaidi had claimed in the lawsuit that the song “Jabra Fan” was absent from the movie she and her kids had viewed the trailer for before heading into the theater to see it.
Feeling duped and misled, the complainant filed a consumer complaint with the relevant district forum, requesting reimbursement and ordering the petitioners to play the song and advertisements, but only if they stated that the song was not included in the movie.
After the district forum rejected her complaint, she went to the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Maharashtra, which was against the production company.
The production company argued that the complainant could not be considered a customer and that the song “Jabra Fan” had been shown on television as a preview for the movie and that press interviews had revealed to the general public that the song would not be featured in the production.
