Delhi High Court Passes Interim Order Protecting Personality Rights Of Gautam Gambhir

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday (March 25) passed an interim order protecting the personality rights Indian cricket team head coach Gautam Gambhir. Earlier, Gambhir withdrew his previous interim injunction application with liberty to file a fresh application with same cause of action with complete and better particulars. After hearing the parties and perusing the infringing links, Justice Jyoti Singh said that as one of the “most decorated cricketers of this country”, he has the right to “protect his name, likeness and all other attributes of his personality and no third party has a right to use these attributes without his consent/authorisation”."Till the next date of hearing, defendants No. 1 to 10 (including unknown entities) are restrained from using and/or in any manner, directly or indirectly, exploiting or misappropriating plaintiff's: (i) names Gautam Gambhir, Gauti and GG; (ii) image; (iii) voice; and (iv) likeness and/or any other attribute of his persona, without his authorisation or consent, for any commercial and/or personal gain, through the use of technology, including but not limited to artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, AI chatbots, face morphing and/or any other mediums and formats, amounting to violation of plaintiff's personality/publicity rights," the Court said.The court also directed e-commerce websites Amazon and Flipkart, and social media platforms Google and Meta Platforms Inc, to take down certain offending content within 36 hours.The Court said it will also ask Google and Meta to give Basic Subscriber Information (BSI), Internet Protocol (IP) login details of the up-loaders.In the morning session, advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai appearing for Gambhir had submitted that the prayers in the interim application were detailed. "All infringing links, some of them have been taken down. As of this morning, some have been taken down. Replications are still happening. There is a direction for dynamic injunction, whenever replication happens. I will leave it at there," he added. Meanwhile Meta's counsel submitted that the infringing URLs and content on its platforms was inaccessible as of today. The court then proceeded to record submissions made by Meta's counsel that all infringing links have been taken down and are inaccessible and hands over a list of URLs to substantiate the position. It further recorded Meta's submission that one of the links was an entire profile. "Statement is taken on record. If plaintiff comes across infringing links identical to the subject links; the same shall be brought to notice of defendant no 13 (Meta) through counsel and needful action be taken with 36 hours. It will be open to plaintiff to approach the court," the court said. With respect to alleged infringing content concerning Amazon Sellers and AI generated content, the counsel for Amazon Sellers submitted that listings can be specifically identified and communicated to the counsel. Dehadrai said that email had been sent to the defendant identifying multiple merchandise products.The court asked if the plaintiff had provided specific links in the plaint, to which Dehadrai said that he will provide the same. "Just to ease it out, just sit out with them and give them the links… there cant be a general direction. I cant ask them to take down entire pages or websites. I don't have that power at all," the court orally said to Dehadrai. Meanwhile counsel for Google submitted that one URL in the plaint had been taken down. "Please give it in writing which have you taken down. All of you sit down. I will pass an order and be done with it," the court said and passed over the matter. Gambhir has sought Rs. 2.5 crore as damages from the defendants, including john doe (unknown entities) for allegedly misusing his name, image, and likeness for commercial gain and misinformation campaigns.Gambhir is aggrieved by proliferation of AI-generated deepfakes and manipulated videos that falsely attribute statements and actions to him. He thus sought removal of such infringing and misleading content from social media platforms, including Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube and Facebook.Recently, the judge had passed a john doe order protecting the personality rights of Yoga guru and Patanjali Ayurved founder Ramdev.For context, coordinate benches have passed orders protecting personality rights of singer Jubin Nautiyal, Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Pawan Kalyan, former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, and actors Kajol Devgan, 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...

Delhi High Court Passes Interim Order Protecting Personality Rights Of Gautam Gambhir

Nupur Thapliyal

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