A Telangana court has granted an ‘ex-parte ad-interim injunction’ till December 27 on an advertisement for the bike-taxi app Rapido, featuring actor Allu Arjun. This means the content cannot be telecast, broadcast, streamed, reproduced, distributed, or made available to the public in any manner, until the specified date.
The court ruled in favour of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), which alleged that the advertisement showed the state service in a poor light.
Further, the City Civil Court has directed YouTube to block access to the advertisement on the platform, both in its original and modified forms, till the same date.
Early in November, Rapido released the advertisement in question featuring Allu Arjun as a roadside dosa vendor. In it, the actor is seen telling a commuter, in heavily-accented Telugu, that a person who gets on public transport like a “normal dosa” will get squashed like a “masala dosa” during commute. A visual of a crowded bus is also shown. Instead, he asks the commuter to use Rapido for a quick ride through the traffic that will be as “smooth as a dosa off the pan.”
Taking offence to this commercial, TSRTC’s Managing Director VC Sajjanar, IPS, had condemned it and said that the transport corporation would be sending a legal notice to the actor and Rapido for “tarnishing its image.”
“The advertisement has drawn flak from a host of people, including RTC commuters, admirers, and our own and retired employees. They are condemning the negative manner in which the RTC bus has been shown in comparison to Rapido service. Demeaning TSRTC will neither be tolerated by the TSRTC management nor by the commuters, admirers and our own and retired employees,” his statement read.
The statement also added that actors should instead promote the usage of public transport in advertisements for a “better and environmentally cleaner society.”
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Subsequently, TSRTC moved the court alleging that Rapido was running defamatory ad films targeting the state service.
Although Rapido had changed the advertisement after the initial objections, TSRTC noted in court that only the colour and number plate of the bus shown were changed. The transport corporation argued that the advertisement featuring Allu Arjun continued to show Telangana buses as dangerous, by making “false statements that have irreversibly damaged the reputation” of TSRTC, which have led to hesitation among the public to use the service.
In view of this, the court granted an interim injunction on the advertisement.