Delhi High Court Passes John Doe Order Protecting Personality Rights Of Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan

The Delhi High Court has passed a john doe interim order protecting the personality rights of Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Pawan Kalyan.Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that the defendants were using Kalyan's name, likeness, voice, and image for selling merchandise for commercial gains, without his consent, either directly or through e-commerce platforms.The Court said that such unauthorised use of his attributes by the infringing defendants, prima facie, amounts to violation of Kalyan's personality rights.It added that the The balance of convenience was in favour of Kalyan, and the continuing availability of the infringing content would cause irreparable injury to him.“The Plaintiff has therefore, made out a case for ex- parte ad-interim injunction against the infringing Defendants,” the Court said. “If any website/aggrieved party, which is not primarily an infringing party, is blocked/affected in pursuance of this Order, it is permitted to approach the Court by giving an undertaking that it does not intend to do any illegal dissemination of the content, which infringes the personality rights of the Plaintiff and the Court would consider modifying the injunction if the facts and circumstances, so warrant,” it added. The Court had earlier directed the social media platforms and e commerce platforms to treat Kalyan's suit as a complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.Recently, the judge had passed similar orders protecting personality rights of former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, and actors R Madhavan and NTR Junior. Similar suit has been filed by actor Salman Khan.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.Counsel for Plaintiff: J. Sai Deepak, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Himanshu Deora, Mr. Rahul Mehta, Mr. Arpit Choudhary, Mr. Krumal Mehta, Ms. Anupriya Alok, Ms. Shambhavi Sharma, Mr. Sanat, Ms. Shambhavi Bhardwaj, Ms. Karen Koya and Ms. Dhwani Vora, AdvsCounsel for Defendants: Ms. Shilpa Gupta and Ms. Surabhi Pande, Advs. for D-2; Ms. Srishti Dhoundiyal, Advocate for D-3; Ms. Mishthi Dubey, Adv. for D-4; Mr. Aditya Gupta, Ms. Vani Kaushik and Mr. Rohith Venkatesan, Advs. for D-5; Mr. Varun Pathak, Mr. Yash Karunakaran and Ms. Varsha Jhavar, Advs. for D-6Title: MR KONIDALA PAWAN KALYAN v. ASHOK KUMAR JOHN DOE & ORSCitation: 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 10Click here to read order

Delhi High Court Passes John Doe Order Protecting Personality Rights Of Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan

Nupur Thapliyal

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