Delhi High Court Says It Will Pass Orders Protecting Raj Shamani's Personality Rights

The Delhi High Court on Monday said that it will pass an interim order restraining the unauthorized use of podcaster Raj Shamani's name, image, voice, and likeness, granting him ad-interim relief against platforms including Google, Meta, and Telegram.

A Single Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora meanwhile issued summons to Google, Meta, and Telegram in a suit seeking  protection of Shamani's personality rights

During the hearing, Senior Advocate Diya Kapur representing Shamani, argued that AI-generated deepfakes and fake endorsements were being circulated online. She said unauthorized chatbots and Telegram channels were impersonating Shamani, giving advice, soliciting funds, promoting crypto schemes, and marketing books as if he were personally involved.

Kapur also pointed to YouTube channels using clips, logos, and scripts from his podcast Figuring Out with Raj Shamani without permission. She raised additional concerns over hashtags and memes being exploited to increase visibility.

She also highlighted misuse of hashtags, YouTube channels using clips of his podcast, logos, and scripts without permission, and content that blurred or replaced his marks with others.

On the other hand, the counsel representing Google pointed out that some of the videos on Youtube were parody videos and in no way exploited the personality or likeness of Shamani. Counsel representing Telegram submitted that while they were ready to take down some of the chats impersonating Shamani, some the prayers were overboard. 

After hearing both the parties, the court was of the opinion that while relief can be granted against some of the prayers sought, rest of them needs to be agitated in a different proceeding. On the issue of videos identified as parody, the court noted that combining the plaintiff's claims against parody content with claims of unauthorized use of personality rights could “embarrass the trial” because the causes of action and defenses would differ.

It also said that issues involving demeaning memes or obscene content needs to be agitated separately.

"In this in these proceedings, the plaintiff has also sought takedown of videos that ex faciei denotifies identify itself as parody. The plea in the opinion of the court, combining the cause of action against the videos, which are a parody with the cause of action against the remaining defendants on the allegations of unauthorised use of the personality rights and publicity rights of the plaintiff would embarrass the trial as the pleas and defences available to the parties would be very different, full stop. In the opinion of the court, a separate action should be brought if maintainable in law qua the videos which are falling in the categories of parody, satire or criticism and alike.", it noted

The court also did not consider use of hashtags as a  ground for relief at this stage as it can be used not just by impersonators but also by fans.

"see, hashtag is used by so many users. There are people who could be your fans who will use it. There will be people who are your user. What happens is when I pass such a blanket order, they will be implementing it across the platform. So let's come up with something specific on this hashtag....I'm not rejecting it expressly, but I'm not willing to exercise that.", the court said. 

The matter will now be listed before the Registry on December 24.

Case Title: RaJ Shamani and Ors v Ashok Kumar/John Doe

Case No.: CS(COMM)-1233/2025