Delhi High Court limits use of personality rights to protect satire and expression

The Delhi High Court has issued rulings in separate personality rights cases, emphasizing that such legal protections should not be used to stifle freedom of expression, satire, or parody.

In a suit filed by PhysicsWallah founder Alakh Pandey, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani noted that the court must ensure personality rights are not deployed to prevent the dissemination of information regarding wrongdoing or to extinguish genres like caricature and lampooning. The court issued an interim order limiting takedowns to content flagged as obscene, derogatory, or involving unauthorized commercial use and impersonation. It also directed intermediaries including Google, X, and Telegram to share basic subscriber information for certain flagged websites.

In a separate matter involving actress Janhvi Kapoor, the court refused to grant a blanket takedown order for 6,884 allegedly offending URLs, describing the requested relief as “over-broad”. However, the court did order the removal of 552 URLs that appeared to contain “grossly sexually vulgar or pornographic” content. Kapoor’s counsel was directed to classify the remaining URLs into specific categories, such as content that directly monetizes her personality rights or uses her likeness to promote merchandise.