Delhi High Court Protects Personality Rights Of Actor R Madhavan; Restrains Sale Of Commercial Merchandise, Obscene Material

The Delhi High Court on Monday (December 22) passed an interim injunction order protecting the personality rights of actor R Madhavan, including restrain on the sale of commercial merchandise using his image and likeness as well as takedown of obscene material. 

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora passed the ad interim injunction order protecting the actor's personality rights, and restrained misuse of the his personality traits including his name, image etc.

Senior Advocate Swathi Sukumar appeared for the actor and took the Court through details of the defendants who had posted deepfake and AI generated content qua Madhavan, including fake trailers.

Kumar told Court that the actor has already approached the social media platforms against the infringing material before filing the suit.

This was after the judge had recently clarified that individuals seeking urgent takedown of objectionable online content must first approach the social media platforms first before directly seeking judicial injunction.

“Issue injunction qua sale of merchandise qua 1,3 and 4 of the list and qua 2 on the ground of obscenity,” the judge said while granting the relief.

Similar suits have been filed by Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Pawan Kalyan, cricketer Sunil Gavaskar and actors Salman Khan and NTR Junior.

The coordinate benches have passed orders protecting the personality rights of “The Art of Living” foundation founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Telugu actor Nagarjuna, Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and film producer Karan Johar.

Notably, Justice Arora recently protected the personality rights of journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, who had sought relief regarding the circulation of allegedly misleading and AI-generated videos against him on social media.

The judge also passed a john doe order protecting the personality rights of podcaster Raj Shamani, observing that he is a known face in India, especially in the field of content creation.

Title: RANGANTHAN MADHAVAN v. G FIMLZ STUDIOZ & ORS