Delhi High Court Directs Takedown Action on Personality Rights Complaint: IT Rules 2021 and the Right to Publicity
The Delhi High Court directed social media intermediaries to treat a suit filed by former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar over misuse of his name, photographs, and likeness as a complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
The intermediaries were directed to take necessary action within seven days of the order
The court's interim directions restrained unauthorised commercial exploitation of the individual's persona, including through artificial intelligence tools and deepfake technology
Specific URLs found hosting objectionable content were separately directed to be taken down within a shorter compliance window
Personality Rights (Right to Publicity) in Indian Law
Personality rights — the right of an individual, particularly a celebrity, to control the commercial use of their name, image, voice, and other identifying attributes — are not codified in a standalone Indian statute. Courts have developed this protection through Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty, read to include dignity and privacy) and Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of expression, encompassing the negative right to not have one's identity commercially exploited without consent), alongside common-law principles of passing off borrowed from intellectual property law.
Key Details
- ICC Development (International) Ltd. v. Arvee Enterprises (Delhi HC, 2003) was among the earliest Indian rulings to discuss publicity rights in the context of ambush marketing
- Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers (Delhi HC, 2012) defined a "celebrity" as a well-known person whose identity carries commercial value, holding that unauthorised commercial use of a celebrity's identity violates the right to publicity
- D.M. Entertainment v. Baby Gift House (Delhi HC, 2010) recognised that a performer's persona (in that case, singer Daler Mehndi's) could not be commercially exploited without consent
- Recent cases — Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India (2023) and Jackie Shroff v. The Peppy Store (2024) — extended protection specifically to AI-generated and meme-based misuse of a celebrity's likeness, voice, and catchphrases
The Gavaskar suit falls within this evolving judicial line recognising personality/publicity rights, extended here to modern digital and AI-based misuse rather than traditional print/broadcast advertising.
K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017): Right to Privacy as the Constitutional Foundation
A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017) that the right to privacy is a fundamental right, intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and to the freedoms guaranteed across Part III of the Constitution. This judgment overruled earlier decisions (M.P. Sharma, 1954, and Kharak Singh, 1963) that had denied privacy the status of a fundamental right.
The Delhi High Court's protection of Gavaskar's persona against unauthorised digital exploitation draws on this constitutional privacy-dignity foundation rather than any specific publicity-rights statute.
IT Rules 2021: Intermediary Due Diligence and the Takedown Mechanism
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, framed under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, lay down due-diligence obligations that online intermediaries must meet to retain "safe harbour" — legal immunity from liability for user-generated content hosted on their platforms.
By directing intermediaries to treat Gavaskar's suit as a formal "complaint" under the 2021 Rules, the Court effectively converted a private civil suit into the kind of authoritative direction that, per Shreya Singhal, obliges intermediaries to act — rather than leaving takedown to each platform's discretion.
- IT Rules 2021 full name: Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, framed under Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000
- Mandatory takedown window on "actual knowledge" (court order/government notification): 36 hours
- Grievance Officer timelines: acknowledge within 24 hours, resolve within 15 days
- K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017): 9-judge bench; right to privacy read into Article 21 and Part III as a whole
- Titan Industries v. Ramkumar Jewellers (2012): Delhi High Court decision defining "celebrity" and the right to publicity
- Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi (2022): first Indian "in rem" (blanket, against the world) John Doe order for personality rights protection
- Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015): established the "actual knowledge" standard limiting when intermediaries must take down content