Delhi High Court celebrity personality rights protection

The Delhi High Court has issued several interim injunctions and orders to protect Bollywood actors from the unauthorized use of their personality rights, specifically targeting misuse through Artificial Intelligence and digital technologies.

Initially, the court granted an ex-parte interim injunction for actor Tabu to prevent the unauthorized use of her name, image, voice, and other attributes. This ruling addressed threats such as deepfakes, face morphing, and commercial exploitation via fake event-booking accounts and unauthorized merchandise. Justice Jyoti Singh directed major digital platforms, including Google, Meta, X, and Reddit, to remove over 150 identified URLs and ordered service providers to disclose subscriber information to assist in tracing responsible individuals.

Following this, the court extended similar protections to actors Janhvi Kapoor and Khushi Kapoor. For Khushi Kapoor, the court directed the removal of allegedly obscene and pornographic content from social media and the takedown of unauthorized merchandise. The court indicated it would issue a ‘John Doe order’ to protect against unidentified individuals involved in the exploitation of her identity, reflecting a broader judicial effort to combat the digital misuse of celebrity likenesses.