Ramdev Moves Delhi High Court Seeking Protection Of Personality Rights; X Corp Says Satire Can't Be Taken Down

Yoga guru and Patanjali Ayurved founder Ramdev moved the Delhi High Court on Tuesday (February 17) seeking protection of his personality rights.

Justice Jyoti Singh posted the matter for hearing tomorrow after briefly hearing Ramdev as well as the counsel appearing for the social media intermediaries.

Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar appeared for Ramdev.

During the hearing today, the counsel appearing for X, formerly Twitter, argued that political commentary, satire, fair comment and public speech cannot be ordered to be taken down in matters seeking protection of personality rights.

The Court has asked Ramdev as well as the counsel of social media entities to file list or note giving details of the content they are objecting to.

Ramdev has sought to restrain the defendants, including unknown entities (john does) from using his title, image, likeness, voice, unique style of discourse and delivery and other attributes without his authorisation for commercial gain.

He also alleged that the defendants were exploiting his personality rights in all formats, including content generated through artificial intelligence and deepfakes.

For context, coordinate benches have passed orders protecting personality rights of Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Pawan Kalyan, former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, and actors R Madhavan and NTR Junior. Similar suit has been filed by actor Salman Khan.

The coordinate benches have also 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, the Court also 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 Court 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: Swami Ramdev v. John Doe & Ors