The Delhi High Court has recently issued a series of orders protecting the personality rights of Bollywood celebrities from unauthorised commercial use. On September 9 and 10, Justice Tejas Karia granted relief to actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, after they flagged the misuse of their images and voices through AI-generated content and merchandise. A week later, Justice Manmeet P.S. Arora extended similar protection to filmmaker Karan Johar, barring the unauthorised use of his persona through deepfakes, morphing, and other digital manipulation.
Actors Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Jackie Shroff have already secured such protections, and the latest spate of petitions signals a wider push for judicial recognition of personality rights in the digital era.
How are personality rights protected in India?
Personality rights safeguard an individual’s name, likeness, image, voice, signature, and other distinctive traits from unauthorised commercial exploitation. Though not codified in a single statute, personality rights in India are grounded in common law doctrines of privacy, defamation, and publicity rights, and reinforced through judicial precedents. Courts may grant injunctions, award damages, or issue takedown orders to curb misuse in advertisements, merchandise, AI-generated content, or digital platforms.
Statutory protection is dispersed across intellectual property laws. The Copyright Act, 1957, grants performers both exclusive rights under Section 38A and moral rights under Section 38B, allowing them to control how their performances are reproduced and to object to any distortion or misuse. The Trade Marks Act, 1999, permits individuals, particularly celebrities, to register distinctive attributes of their persona, such as names, signatures, or even catchphrases, as trademarks.
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For instance, actors such as Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Ajay Devgn, and Amitabh Bachchan have registered their names as trademarks. However, the most robust safeguard lies in the common law tort of “passing off” under Section 27 of the Act, which protects the goodwill of an unregistered mark and prevents misrepresentation that could deceive the public or imply false endorsement. This protection is neither automatic nor absolute, as courts generally require clear evidence of reputation and goodwill before granting relief.
At the heart of personality rights lies the right to autonomy and privacy rooted in Article 21 of the Constitution. When a celebrity consents to appear in a film, advertisement, or public campaign, they exercise control over their public identity. But when third parties print their image on merchandise or use AI tools to generate deepfakes or chatbots without authorisation, that autonomy is stripped away and the individual’s dignity and agency are compromised.
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What have courts ruled so far?
The jurisprudence on personality rights in India traces its origins to the seminal 1994 judgment in R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, where a magazine sought to publish the autobiography of Auto Shankar, a death-row convict, recounting details of his private life and alleged links with state officials. The government moved to restrain the publication on grounds of privacy and defamation. The Supreme Court recognised that individuals possess a legitimate interest in controlling the use of their identity, grounding this protection in the constitutional right to privacy. However, it clarified that remedies for privacy violations must follow publication, through actions such as defamation suits, rather than through prior restraint by the state. The court further held that personal details may be published without consent if they are already part of the public record.
Two decades later, the Madras High Court crystallised the emerging doctrine in a case involving actor Rajinikanth. The lawsuit, filed against the producers of the film Main Hoon Rajnikanth, alleged misuse of the actor’s name, image, and distinctive style of delivering dialogues. The court stressed that infringement does not require proof of falsity, confusion, or deception if the celebrity is readily identifiable and accordingly upheld the actor’s right to restrain the unauthorised commercial exploitation of his persona.
With the advent of AI, courts have had to grapple with novel threats to identity. In 2023, theDelhi High Court granted actor Anil Kapoor wide-ranging protection over his personality rights, restraining 16 online entities from exploiting his name, image, voice, likeness, or his catchphrase “jhakaas,” which he popularised in films. Justice Prathiba Singh clarified that free speech extends to “genuine write-ups, parody, satires and criticism” but cannot be stretched to justify commercial exploitation. She cautioned that when such use “crosses the line and results in tarnishing, blackening or jeopardising the individual’s personality and elements associated with them, it would be illegal.” Referring to morphed images of the actor with other actresses, she said this was “not merely offensive” to him but also to third parties, adding that the court “can’t turn a blind eye to such misuse,” particularly where dilution and tarnishment are actionable torts.
Similarly, in May 2024, the Delhi High Court protected the personality and publicity rights of actor Jackie Shroff, restraining e-commerce platforms and AI chatbots from misusing his name, image, voice, and likeness without consent. The court observed that the “unauthorised use of these characteristics for commercial purposes not only infringes upon these rights but also dilutes the brand equity painstakingly built by the plaintiff over the years.”
A few months later, the Bombay High Court delivered a significant ruling in favour of singer Arijit Singh, who alleged that Codible Ventures LLP had used AI tools to create artificial recordings of his voice, a practice known as voice cloning. The court reiterated that the singer’s “name, voice, image, likeness, persona and other traits” are protected under his personality and publicity rights. Expressing concern over the risks of generative AI, Justice R.I. Chagla observed, “What shocks the conscience of this court is the manner in which celebrities, particularly performers such as the present Plaintiff, are vulnerable to being targeted by unauthorised generative AI content.”
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To what extent can such rights curtail free expression?
Critics argue that the expansive protection of personality rights could stifle free expression. Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of speech, which includes the creative freedom to criticise, parody, or satirise public figures. However, Indian courts have repeatedly affirmed that this right is not absolute and must be balanced against an individual’s dignity and autonomy.
In DM Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. v. Baby Gift House (2010), the Delhi High Court dealt with a petition filed by a company to which singer Daler Mehndi had assigned his personality rights. The company had alleged that gift shops were selling dolls that were “cheap imitations of, and identical to the likeness” of Mr. Mehndi, amounting to the unauthorised commercial exploitation of his persona. While granting an injunction, Justice S. Ravindra Bhat cautioned that caricatures, lampooning, and parodies would not ordinarily infringe publicity rights. He warned that an “overemphasis on a famous person’s publicity rights” could chill free speech and deprive the public of an entire genre of expression.
This principle was reaffirmed more than a decade later in Digital Collectibles PTE Ltd. v. Galactus Funware Technology Pvt. Ltd. (2023), which involved the unauthorised use of sports stars’ likenesses despite exclusive licences held by the plaintiff. The Delhi High Court refused to broaden publicity rights at the expense of free expression, noting that material already in the public domain could not reasonably mislead the public into believing there was an endorsement. Justice Amit Bansal clarified that the use of celebrity names or images for “lampooning, satire, parodies, art, scholarship, music, academics, news and other similar uses” is a legitimate exercise of Article 19(1)(a) right and does not amount to infringement of publicity rights.
What are the concerns?
Jwalika Balaji, research fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, told The Hindu that a comprehensive legislative framework is the need of the hour to ensure that the enforcement of such rights is not reliant on piecemeal judicial precedents. “In the absence of a regulatory regime, responses remain fragmented and ad hoc. More importantly, there is a fine line between artistic creation and a breach of personality rights. Exceptions must be clearly identified and firmly respected, especially in times when concerns over censorship loom large,” she said.
She further pointed out that personality rights are not the exclusive privilege of celebrities, since all individuals enjoy the right to privacy. “Ordinary citizens, especially women, are increasingly targeted through deepfakes and revenge pornography. Laws must be tailor-made to address this disproportionate impact on women,” she said. She noted that in such cases, courts often direct the government to block URLs impersonating an individual or misusing their images without consent. However, she cautioned that tracking every such breach and acting on it remains a herculean task. |
