Delhi High Court Asks Social Media Platforms To Act On Former Cricketer Sunil Gavaskar's Plea To Protect His Personality Rights

The Delhi High Court on Friday (December 12) asked social media intermediaries to treat a suit filed by former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar seeking protection of his personality rights as a complaint and decide the same. 

During the hearing the counsel for Gavaskar submitted before Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, "I have prepared a chart with respect to infringing activities of the primary defendants...Qua defendant 4, selling photos…"

The court at this stage orally said, "You know about my order no, that you have to first approach the intermediaries… let them act on your complaint. I don't know why parties are not using that mechanism. We can take up this after 10 days. They can examine your complaint by then and you can come back. It will largely take care of your grievance".

The court in its order noted that  reliefs have been sought against defendants 8,9, 1 as well as john doe entities who are users and uploaders on the social media platforms of defendants 7,11,10.

"The Defendants 7,11, and 10 are directed to treat plaint as complaint as per 2021 IT Rules and decide it within one week. The plaintiff is directed to provide to social media platforms the urls in respect whereof the takedown is prayed for within 48 hours from today" the court said. 

Yesterday, a similar order was passed by the Court in the suit filed by actor Salman Khan seeking protection of his personality rights.

Recently, Justice Arora had clarified that individuals seeking urgent takedown of objectionable online content must first approach the social media platforms first before directly seeking judicial injunction.

On December 08, actor Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, popularly known as NTR Junior, moved the Court seeking similar relief. Justice Arora had directed the social media platforms and e commerce platforms to treat the his suit as a complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Recently, 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: SUNIL GAVASKAR v. CRICKET TAK & Ors