Actor Mohanlal Withdraws Plea Seeking Interim Relief Against Infringing Content In Suit For Protecting Personality Rights

Malayalam actor Mohanlal on Tuesday (March 24) withdrew from Delhi High Court his application for interim injunction against content allegedly infringing his personality rights.The court permitted the actor to withdraw his interim application while granting him liberty to file it afresh with better particulars. The order was passed in the actor's main suit seeking protection of his personality rights which is now listed on Friday. After hearing the matter for some time, Justice Jyoti Singh in her order dictated:"Counsel appearing for the plaintiff seeks to withdraw the application (Order 39 Rule 1,2) with liberty to file it afresh with same cause of action with complete and better particulars. Grating the said liberty, the application is disposed of. List on Friday". When the matter was taken up in the morning sessions, the counsel appearing for Mohanlal submitted, "I am a Padma Bhushan awardee, Babasaheb Phalke award winner. There are five broad categories. There is unauthorized sale of merchandise, deepfake and AI. Defendants 2-14 are hosting unauthorized merchandise. Meta and Google are main respondents for AI and deepfake. Third is, voice cloning".He submitted that the Fourth category was fake endorsements made in the actor's name. "There is fraudulence aspect in this. Fifth (category) is reproduction of my photos and videos and it carries aspect of body shaming," the counsel added. The court orally asked if the actor had provided a table indicating the reliefs claimed against various defendants as well as the infringing links. To this counsel said that they had.After going through the infringing links and content the court said to defendants counsel, "I am asking you to take them all off". The court had thereafter kept the matter post lunch after Meta's counsel submitted that he may be served with a copy of the suit. When the matter was taken up in the post-lunch session Meta's counsel said, "Your lordships may consider the issue of jurisdiction. The superstar is of Kerala. Most people are outside jurisdiction of this court. There is a flood of this litigation otherwise". To this the court said, "Take your objection whenever you have to". However Meta's counsel said that the objection was not for him to take as Meta is only an intermediary. Meta's counsel further said that relief sought by the actor was only against the up-loaders of the alleged infringing content. At this stage the court noted that some of the up-loaders were not made parties to the suit. The court said to Mohanlal's counsel, "Segregate links, do some homework". To this the counsel said, "Every minute a new link is generated. Consider passing an order and give BSI details…". However Meta's counsel said that the actor had not moved an application seeking this relief. The court thereafter permitted the actor to withdraw the application for interim relief with liberty as sought. Recently, the judge had passed a John Doe order protecting the personality rights of actress Sonakshi Sinha and 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 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.The matter is listed on March 27. Case Title: - MOHANLAL VISWANATHAN NAIR v. JOHN DOE & ORSCS(COMM)-296/2026

Actor Mohanlal Withdraws Plea Seeking Interim Relief Against Infringing Content In Suit For Protecting Personality Rights

Nupur Thapliyal

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