Curefit’s Cult.Fit, Hrithik Roshan Accused Of Cheating; Company Denies Charges

Actor Hrithik Roshan, who is also the brand ambassador for Curefit’s Cult.Fit, has been booked on the charge of cheating along with three officials of Cult.Fit, following a complaint by a subscriber alleging that ‘false promises’ were made in the company ads regarding services offered by the fitness centre. 

The complainant alleged that he was not given daily workout sessions at Cult.Fit fitness centre though he had paid the fee for “unlimited” classes. 

In a statement, Cult.Fit said it was cooperating with authorities “as per due process and evaluating remedial action”. 

“The customer in question, has behaved inappropriately and violently with our staff against whom we were constrained to take action. The current police complaint appears to have been hence filed subsequently against us falsely, while also mischievously dragging our celebrity brand ambassador, Hrithik Roshan, wrongly in it,” it said. 

The man reportedly lodged a complaint with police on June 22 stating that in November 2018 he enrolled at the fitness centre/gym by paying INR 17,490 as member for 10 month period for unlimited classes, but was “cheated by not getting workout sessions daily.” 

“Most of the time the workout session is not available which is denying good health benefits causing mental depression,” he told ET. 

Following the complaint, a case under IPC sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) was registered against the actor, being the firm’s brand ambassador and three senior officials of the company. 

Curefit’s Global Ambitions 

Cure.Fit, which uses an online-offline model to offer physical fitness (Cult.Fit), mental fitness (Mind.Fit), nutrition (Eat.Fit), is not only expanding in cities across India, but has now gone global as well. 

As such standardisation of quality across its outlets will increasingly become a sensitive metric and the vulnerability to such litigations is something the company would be well aware of. 

Cure.Fit has the backing of investors to push forward its expansion plans with Japanese investment firm SoftBank reportedly in talks to invest in Indian fitness and wellness startup Cure.Fit. 

The deal is said to be in the early stages of discussion, with the parties still negotiating on the amount of investment and with the capital raise said be somewhere between $200 Mn – $350 Mn, the plan is to take Cure.Fit global.