Delhi High Court Protects Personality Rights Of Filmmaker Karan Johar; Orders Take Down Of 'Disparaging' Posts, Memes

The Delhi High Court has passed an interim order protecting the personality rights of Bollywood filmmaker and producer Karan Johar. Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora has ordered take down of “disparaging material” against Johar, including videos, memes and social media posts. “On a prima facie assessment, it is evident that the videos, memes and social media posts available on the platforms of Defendant Nos. 7, 14 and 15 contains abusive and profane words as well as innuendoes, which appear to be offensive. The said content tarnishes the reputation and goodwill of the Plaintiff affecting his brand value. The Plaintiff is prima facie entitled to seek injunction to protect his personality rights against such negative use,” the Court said. It added that since the social media accounts mentioned in the suit were unauthorizedly using Johar's name, they were liable to be taken down in view of the objection raised by the filmmaker. “The contention of the Plaintiff that the said accounts have the potential to mislead the public to believe that the said accounts are the official and/or authorized accounts of the plaintiff is prima facie plausible,” the Court said.Justice Arora said that Johar had established a prima facie case for grant of an ex parte ad interim injunction and that the balance of convenience also was in his favour and against the Defendant entities in his suit. “This Court is of the prima facie opinion that if an injunction is not granted in favour of the Plaintiff, irreparable loss and harm would be caused to the Plaintiff's reputation,” the Court said. The Court restrained defendants Perfect Privacy LLC and Giphy from publishing any material which infringes the personality rights of Johar and directed them to take down the infringing URLs mentioned in the suit.The Court further directed defendant Godaddy India Web Services Private Limited- which provided an 'AI Voice Swap Generator' regarding Johar and featuring his image, to suspend and lock the impugned domain name for the website. The Court also ordered suspension of the name for the website available at https:/beta.opedia.ai/. “Defendant Nos. 9 and 13 are restrained from selling and/or facilitating sale of merchandise which infringes the personality rights of the Plaintiff,” the Court said. “The Plaintiff will be at liberty to approach Defendant Nos. 14, 15 and 16 for taking down any mirror or identical content as well as social media accounts using his name which comes to its attention in future,” it added.Further, Justice Arora restrained the defendants from utilizing Karan Johar's name, his acronym 'KJo', likeness, image, voice, personality or any other aspects of his persona to create any merchandise, or misusing the said attributes using technological tools such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, deep fakes, face morphing, GIFs either for monetary gains or otherwise.Johar in his lawsuit claimed that various entities, including John Does (unknown entities), have been using his name, image etc without his consent for monetary gains. In this plea, Johar has also alleged unauthorised sale of merchandise using his name and image, disparity and obscenity, domain name, impersonation and fake profile.Counsel for Plaintiff: Mr. Rajshekhar Rao, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Nizamuddin Pasha, Mr. Parag Khandhar, Ms. Chandrima Mitra, Mr. Krishan Kumar and Mr. Sidharth Kaushik, AdvsCounsel for Defendants: Ms. Nirupam Lodha, Mr. Kshitiz Parashar and Mr. Gautam Wadhwa, Advs. for D-8 and 11; Ms. Mamta Rani Jha, Mr. Rohan Ahuja, Ms. Shruttima Ehersa, Ms. Diya Viswanath, Ms. Aiswarya D. and Ms. Devangini Rai, Advs. for D-6 and D-14; Mr. Varun Pathak and Mr. Yash Karunakaran, Advs. for D-15Title: KARAN JOHAR v. ASHOK KUMAR/JOHN DOE & ORSCitation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1152Click here to read order

Delhi High Court Protects Personality Rights Of Filmmaker Karan Johar; Orders Take Down Of 'Disparaging' Posts, Memes

Nupur Thapliyal

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