When Hrithik Roshan's romantic date deal forced a woman to take legal action

Hrithik Roshan has been the heartthrob of millions of young women for more than two decades now since his debut. However, when he first appeared on the screen with Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai , girls went wild and there was a sort of euphoria among young girls to meet him with hundreds of them pasting his poster on their bedroom walls.

In those days, big corporate companies held competitions and promised that the winner would get to meet their favourite cricketer or Bollywood star. In 2000, when Hrithik Roshan was at the peak of his career, Coca-Cola organised a contest in which the winner was promised a romantic date with the Bollywood superstar.

Incidentally, Shikha Monga who resided in Haryana’s Panchkula town won this contest and the 19-year-old was very excited to meet Hrithik Roshan. But Coca-Cola never fulfilled the promise. When years together went by but the company showed no sign of fulfilling its promise, Shikha at the age of 34 sued the leading soft drink brand seeking INR 2.5 crore for damage.

In her application to the court Shikha Monga had said that Coco-Cola Limited during their promotional programme had announced prizes on the back side of the crown of the soft drink bottles. At that time she was studying in Chandigarh’s Government College for Girls and used most of her pocket money to buy the Coke bottles to win the first prize.

Incidentally, she did win the first prize which promised her a romantic date with Hrithik Roshan . When Shikha approached the marketing office of Coca-Cola in Chandigarh, instead of arranging for the date, the manager of the company offered to pay her Rs 5 lakh.

But Shikha declined the offer and insisted that the promise of a dinner date with the Bollywood actor should be fulfilled. Since the company failed to do as promised she registered a case against Coca-Cola Limited claiming damages of 2.5 crores.

According to Shikha, “Everybody in college, friends and relatives used to ask me about my dinner with Hrithik. I lost my reputation and was labeled a liar.” Later on, however, there was a buzz that the case was settled outside the court.