NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said that BhartiAirtel’s advertisements offering “live and free access” to IPL coverage, ought to carry the disclaimer in a larger font size than it has now.
Justice Yogesh Khanna made the observation while reserving his decision on a plea by Reliance Jio (RJio) alleging that Airtel’s commercials were “deceptive and misleading”, PTI reports.
Jio had argued that the advertisements “falsely proclaim” that Airtel was offering “live and free” access to T20 cricket coverage and also “falsely represent that a subscriber need only obtain a 4G sim from the defendant company and download the Airtel TV app to obtain a virtual season pass, that is live and free access to T20 coverage”. As a result, Reliance had filed a contempt plea in court last month asking it to carry a disclaimer in bold stating that under its ‘live and free access offer’, only subscription to video streaming platform Hotstar would be free and data charges according to the subscriber’s plan would apply.
Airtel, represented by senior advocate P Chidambaram, told the court that its commercials and advertisements were in accordance with the norms laid down by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). ASCI is a self-regulatory voluntary organization of the advertising industry in India.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who was representing Reliance, said that the commercials have already run for more than three weeks and the campaign will continue till May 27.
During the hearing, Chidambaram countered that Reliance had no legal or common law right to come to court and claim that Airtel’s commercials were misleading consumers.
He said that consumers, if misled, can seek appropriate remedy under the law.
The lawyer further said that Airtel will abide by whatever suggestion the court might give and added that his client was not in contempt of any judicial order.
The court observed that while “technically it’s (advertisements) ok”, the font size needs to be bigger and said it will pass appropriate orders.
