Kamal Ghorui
Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor on Wednesday approached the Delhi High Court, seeking protection of his personality rights against the alleged misuse of his identity through AI-generated material and pornographic content.The matter was taken up by Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, who heard submissions from Advocate Pravin Anand, appearing on behalf of Kapoor. Anand informed the Court that several defendants were commercially exploiting the actor’s persona by selling merchandise featuring his images without authorisation. He further submitted that certain parties had circulated sexually explicit material, deepfakes, and pornographic visuals involving Kapoor.During the hearing, Anand pointed out that Justice Gedela had earlier issued seven orders safeguarding personality rights in cases involving figures such as Jubin Nautiyal, Vivek Oberoi, and Acharya Balakrishnan, among others.As the allegedly objectionable content was presented before the Court, Justice Gedela observed that public figures cannot demand blanket removal of all content featuring them unless it is clearly defamatory or derogatory. In response, Anand argued that the material in question went beyond humour or satire, stating it included AI-generated distortions, such as Kapoor’s image being merged with an animal or depicted as selling golgappas.“Nobody would like that. Not even a common man,” he said.The Court, however, remarked: “Common man doesn’t come to court for personality rights. When a person is in public glare, lot of things happen. We can understand if things are disparaging or defamatory. But everything cannot come under that. Otherwise the judgment in DM entertainment will be rendered redundant.”The bench also heard submissions from counsel representing Google LLC. Following arguments from all sides, the Court stated that a detailed order on interim relief will be issued soon. The High Court has previously extended similar protection to several public figures, including Allu Arjun, Mohanlal, Aniruddhacharya, Pawan Kalyan, Sunil Gavaskar, Kajol, R. Madhavan, and Jr. NTR. A similar plea has also been filed by Salman Khan. Coordinate benches of the Court have likewise passed orders protecting the personality rights of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Nagarjuna, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Karan Johar.A John Doe order was issued to safeguard the personality rights of podcaster Raj Shamani, with the Court noting his prominence in India’s content creation space.
