9/25/25, 7:20 AM What are personality rights and how have courts shielded Indian celebrities - The Hindu
What are personality rights and
how have courts shielded Indian
celebrities
Experts told The Hindu that legislative intervention is urgently needed to end
reliance on piecemeal judicial precedents in enforcing personality rights
Updated - September 24, 2025 10:32 pm IST
AARATRIKA BHAUMIK
T
The Delhi High Court has issued directions against the unauthorised commercial and online exploitation of
Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s personality rights. File | Photo Credit: R. Ravindran
he Delhi High Court has recently issued a series of orders protecting the
personality rights of Bollywood celebrities from unauthorised commercial
use. On September 9 and 10, Justice Tejas Karia granted relief to actors
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, after they flagged the misuse of their
images and voices through AI-generated content and merchandise. A week later, Justice
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9/25/25, 7:20 AM What are personality rights and how have courts shielded Indian celebrities - The Hindu
Manmeet P.S. Arora extended similar protection to filmmaker Karan Johar, barring the
unauthorised use of his persona through deepfakes, morphing, and other digital
manipulation.
Actors Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Jackie Shroff have already secured such
protections, and the latest spate of petitions signals a wider push for judicial
recognition of personality rights in the digital era.
How are personality rights protected in India?
Personality rights safeguard an individual’s name, likeness, image, voice, signature, and
other distinctive traits from unauthorised commercial exploitation. Though not
codified in a single statute, personality rights in India are grounded in common law
doctrines of privacy, defamation, and publicity rights, and reinforced through judicial
precedents. Courts may grant injunctions, award damages, or issue takedown orders to
curb misuse in advertisements, merchandise, AI-generated content, or digital platforms.
Statutory protection is dispersed across intellectual property laws. The Copyright Act,
1957, grants performers both exclusive rights under Section 38A and moral rights under
Section 38B, allowing them to control how their performances are reproduced and to
object to any distortion or misuse. The Trade Marks Act, 1999, permits individuals,
particularly celebrities, to register distinctive attributes of their persona, such as names,
signatures, or even catchphrases, as trademarks.
For instance, actors such as Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Ajay Devgn, and
Amitabh Bachchan have registered their names as trademarks. However, the most
robust safeguard lies in the common law tort of “passing off” under Section 27 of the
Act, which protects the goodwill of an unregistered mark and prevents
misrepresentation that could deceive the public or imply false endorsement. This
protection is neither automatic nor absolute, as courts generally require clear evidence
of reputation and goodwill before granting relief.
At the heart of personality rights lies the right to autonomy and privacy rooted in Article
21 of the Constitution. When a celebrity consents to appear in a film, advertisement, or
public campaign, they exercise control over their public identity. But when third parties
print their image on merchandise or use AI tools to generate deepfakes or chatbots
without authorisation, that autonomy is stripped away and the individual’s dignity and
agency are compromised.
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9/25/25, 7:20 AM What are personality rights and how have courts shielded Indian celebrities - The Hindu
What have courts ruled so far?
The jurisprudence on personality rights in India traces its origins to the seminal 1994
judgment in R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, where a magazine sought to publish
the autobiography of Auto Shankar, a death-row convict, recounting details of his
private life and alleged links with state officials. The government moved to restrain the
publication on grounds of privacy and defamation. The Supreme Court recognised that
individuals possess a legitimate interest in controlling the use of their identity,
grounding this protection in the constitutional right to privacy. However, it clarified
that remedies for privacy violations must follow publication, through actions such as
defamation suits, rather than through prior restraint by the state. The court further
held that personal details may be published without consent if they are already part of
the public record.
Two decades later, the Madras High Court crystallised the emerging doctrine in a case
involving actor Rajinikanth. The lawsuit, filed against the producers of the film Main
Hoon Rajnikanth, alleged misuse of the actor’s name, image, and distinctive style of
delivering dialogues. The court stressed that infringement does not require proof of
falsity, confusion, or deception if the celebrity is readily identifiable and accordingly
upheld the actor’s right to restrain the unauthorised commercial exploitation of his
persona.
With the advent of AI, courts have had to grapple with novel threats to identity. In 2023,
the Delhi High Court granted actor Anil Kapoor wide-ranging protection over his
personality rights, restraining 16 online entities from exploiting his name, image, voice,
likeness, or his catchphrase “jhakaas,” which he popularised in films. Justice Prathiba
Singh clarified that free speech extends to “genuine write-ups, parody, satires and
criticism” but cannot be stretched to justify commercial exploitation. She cautioned
that when such use “crosses the line and results in tarnishing, blackening or
jeopardising the individual’s personality and elements associated with them, it would
be illegal.” Referring to morphed images of the actor with other actresses, she said this
was “not merely offensive” to him but also to third parties, adding that the court “can’t
turn a blind eye to such misuse,” particularly where dilution and tarnishment are
actionable torts.
Similarly, in May 2024, the Delhi High Court protected the personality and publicity
rights of actor Jackie Shroff, restraining e-commerce platforms and AI chatbots from
misusing his name, image, voice, and likeness without consent. The court observed that
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9/25/25, 7:20 AM What are personality rights and how have courts shielded Indian celebrities - The Hindu
the “unauthorised use of these characteristics for commercial purposes not only
infringes upon these rights but also dilutes the brand equity painstakingly built by the
plaintiff over the years.”
A few months later, the Bombay High Court delivered a significant ruling in favour of
singer Arijit Singh, who alleged that Codible Ventures LLP had used AI tools to create
artificial recordings of his voice, a practice known as voice cloning. The court reiterated
that the singer’s “name, voice, image, likeness, persona and other traits” are protected
under his personality and publicity rights. Expressing concern over the risks of
generative AI, Justice R.I. Chagla observed, “What shocks the conscience of this court is
the manner in which celebrities, particularly performers such as the present Plaintiff,
are vulnerable to being targeted by unauthorised generative AI content.”
To what extent can such rights curtail free expression?
Critics argue that the expansive protection of personality rights could stifle free
expression. Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to
freedom of speech, which includes the creative freedom to criticise, parody, or satirise
public figures. However, Indian courts have repeatedly affirmed that this right is not
absolute and must be balanced against an individual’s dignity and autonomy.
In DM Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. v. Baby Gift House (2010), the Delhi High Court dealt
with a petition filed by a company to which singer Daler Mehndi had assigned his
personality rights. The company had alleged that gift shops were selling dolls that were
“cheap imitations of, and identical to the likeness” of Mr. Mehndi, amounting to the
unauthorised commercial exploitation of his persona. While granting an injunction,
Justice S. Ravindra Bhat cautioned that caricatures, lampooning, and parodies would
not ordinarily infringe publicity rights. He warned that an “overemphasis on a famous
person’s publicity rights” could chill free speech and deprive the public of an entire
genre of expression.
This principle was reaffirmed more than a decade later in Digital Collectibles PTE Ltd. v.
Galactus Funware Technology Pvt. Ltd. (2023), which involved the unauthorised use of
sports stars’ likenesses despite exclusive licences held by the plaintiff. The Delhi High
Court refused to broaden publicity rights at the expense of free expression, noting that
material already in the public domain could not reasonably mislead the public into
believing there was an endorsement. Justice Amit Bansal clarified that the use of
celebrity names or images for “lampooning, satire, parodies, art, scholarship, music,
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9/25/25, 7:20 AM What are personality rights and how have courts shielded Indian celebrities - The Hindu
academics, news and other similar uses” is a legitimate exercise of Article 19(1)(a) right
and does not amount to infringement of publicity rights.
What are the concerns?
Jwalika Balaji, research fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, told The Hindu that a
comprehensive legislative framework is the need of the hour to ensure that the
enforcement of such rights is not reliant on piecemeal judicial precedents. “In the
absence of a regulatory regime, responses remain fragmented and ad hoc. More
importantly, there is a fine line between artistic creation and a breach of personality
rights. Exceptions must be clearly identified and firmly respected, especially in times
when concerns over censorship loom large,” she said.
She further pointed out that personality rights are not the exclusive privilege of
celebrities, since all individuals enjoy the right to privacy. “Ordinary citizens, especially
women, are increasingly targeted through deepfakes and revenge pornography. Laws
must be tailor-made to address this disproportionate impact on women,” she said. She
noted that in such cases, courts often direct the government to block URLs
impersonating an individual or misusing their images without consent. However, she
cautioned that tracking every such breach and acting on it remains a herculean task.
Published - September 24, 2025 12:20 pm IST
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