The Delhi High Court has extended interim injunctive protection to Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and actor Konidala Pawan Kalyan in a civil suit alleging infringement of his personality rights.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora recently held that it was prima facie satisfied that the plaintiff’s proprietary interests in his personality were being unlawfully appropriated, restrained multiple websites and online entities from exploiting his name, image, likeness, voice, or other identifiable attributes without prior authorisation.
Such unauthorised appropriation, particularly for commercial gain, amounted to a violation of the plaintiff’s personality and publicity rights, recognised as emanating from the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution, as expounded in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, and protected through the common law of torts, including passing off and misappropriation, noted the Court.
It observed that such acts, if left unchecked, could lead to deception, dilution of goodwill, and unjust enrichment, in addition to infringing the plaintiff’s autonomy over the commercial use of his identity.
Addressing the issue of fan-run social media accounts, the single-judge Bench adopted a calibrated approach. It observed that in case such accounts were operated bona fide by admirers and not for commercial exploitation, takedown would not be warranted, provided the account holders clearly and prominently disclose, through profile descriptions, that the pages were fan accounts and not officially associated with the plaintiff.
Until such disclaimers were incorporated, the High Court directed the platforms to render the accounts inactive. It further directed Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook and Instagram) to communicate the interim order to the concerned users and ensure compliance. Meta and Google LLC were also ordered to disclose basic subscriber information of the infringing users within three weeks, in accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, to facilitate effective enforcement of the plaintiff’s rights.
The suit was instituted against social media intermediaries, e-commerce platforms, and unidentified defendants (John Does), alleging rampant misuse of the plaintiff’s persona for commercial gain. The plaintiff asserted that several online entities were impersonating him through AI-generated voice replications and deepfake content to solicit commercial engagements, while others were selling merchandise such as apparel, mugs, accessories, digital wallpapers, and other goods bearing his image and likeness without consent, thereby amounting to false endorsement and passing off.
The interim injunction expressly proscribes the defendants from using the plaintiff’s persona through any technological means, including artificial intelligence-enabled tools such as voice cloning, deepfake videos, morphing, or digital manipulation, thereby acknowledging the evolving contours of personality rights in the context of emerging technologies.
Senior Advocate J Sai Deepak, appearing for the plaintiff, submitted that consistent with the Delhi High Court’s approach in earlier personality rights matters, including the injunction granted in favour of actor Ajay Devgn, the plaintiff had initially sought redressal from the concerned intermediaries. However, the lack of timely and effective response necessitated judicial intervention, as infringing content continued to remain accessible despite prior complaints. The Court had, at an earlier stage, directed Meta, Google, and X (formerly Twitter) to take action on the plaintiff’s grievances.
The single-judge Bench ordered that interim directions will remain in operation till the next date of hearing and listed the matter for further hearing on May 12.
The post Infringement of personality rights: Delhi High Court grants interim relief to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan appeared first on India Legal.