Delhi HC protects Hrithik Roshan, Kumar Sanu’s personality rights; restrains misuse of name, image, voice

Delhi HC was hearing suits filed by Hrithik, Sanu for safeguarding their publicity rights, asserting that their persona was misused for selling merchandise

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Wednesday protected the personality rights of Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan and singer Kumar Sanu by restraining entities from commercially exploiting their names, images, or voices without their consent.

The court was hearing suits filed by Hrithik and Sanu for safeguarding their publicity rights.

A single bench of justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that she would pass separate detailed orders directing multiple entities to remove URLs that infringe upon Hrithik and Sanu, including the commercial sale of merchandise, the creation of obscene posts, and the use of AI to generate images and chatbots.

In Hrithik’s case, the judge, however, declined to issue an order for the immediate removal of the actor’s fan pages. This was after Meta’s counsel submitted that taking down entire fan pages would be a disproportionate response. Instead, the lawyer urged the court to hear the concerned individuals first and to consider directing the removal of specific URLs rather than entire pages.

“We can’t have fan clubs taken down at the ex parte stage. I’m not willing to (order) take down fan pages. I understand the commercialisation, morphed images, obscene content, but I don’t understand fan club pages taken down (from social media platforms including Instagram). Instagram use is not only commercial. People do it for fun and recreation. These pages are not defamatory for you at all. For the remaining, I’ll pass an injunction order,” justice Arora remarked in Hrithik’s case.

The court was hearing suits filed by Hrithik and Sanu for safeguarding their publicity rights, asserting that their persona was misused for selling merchandise for illegal commercial purposes and associating them with various organisations.

In May 2024, the court safeguarded veteran actor Jackie Shroff’s personality and publicity rights, observing that unauthorised merchandise sales and distorted videos appeared to generate commercial gain through “unauthorised exploitation.”

The court had similarly restrained the misuse of actor Anil Kapoor’s name, image, voice and signature “jhakaas” catchphrase in 2023. In November 2022, the high court protected veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights from infringement.

The court, in September this year, had also safeguarded Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and filmmaker Karan Johar’s personality and publicity rights, and in October had protected Telugu actor Akkineni Nagarjuna’s rights.