Delhi High Court Orders Take Down Of Illegal Sale Of Merchandise, Social Media Posts On Former Cricketer Sunil Gavaskar

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday passed an ad interim injunction order protecting the personality rights of former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora ordered take down of various listings pertaining to illegal and unauthorised sale of merchandise using Gavaskar's personality attributes.

The judge also ordered removal of various social media posts available on Meta platforms and X (formerly Twitter) wherein uploaders had attributed incorrect quotes to Gavaskar.

It was his case that the quotes were never given by him and that their existence on social media platforms will prejudice his credibility as a cricket commentator as the content pertained to current affairs.

Yesterday, the Court passed a similar order protecting the personality rights of bollywood actor R Madhavan.

Similar suits have been filed by Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Pawan Kalyan 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: SUNIL GAVASKAR v. CRICKET TAK & Ors