LANDMARK JUDGEMENT: DELHI HC PASSES OMNIBUS ORDER RESTRAINING INFRINGEMENT OF PERSONALITY RIGHTS OF AMITABH BACHCHAN | 25 November, 2022

The Delhi high court today (November 25) passed an interim order restraining persons at large from infringing the personality and publicity rights of Amitabh Bachchan. Justice Navin Chawla stated in his order, “It cannot seriously be disputed that the plaintiff is a well-known personality and is also represented in various advertisements. The plaintiff is aggrieved by the defendants using his celebrity status to promote their own goods and services without his permission or authorisation. Having considered the plaint, I am of the opinion that a prima facie case is made out and balance of convenience also lies in his favour.”

The judge also noted that Bachchan is likely to suffer irreparable loss and harm, and that some of the activities may even bring him disrepute, if the order is not passed.

The court issued directions to the authorities and telecom service providers on the prayers made in the suit.

The suit was filed on behalf of Amitabh Bachchan by Anand & Naik. Senior advocate Harish Salve, along with advocates Ameet Naik, Pravin Anand and Madhu Gadodia appeared for Bachchan.

Bachchan had approached the high court seeking an omnibus order protecting his name, image, voice or any of his characteristics without his consent. The suit stated that Bachchan’s name, image and voice were being misused by mobile application developers to conduct lotteries by illegally associating with Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), a show hosted by the veteran actor. He had also sought a restraining order against book publishers, T-shirt vendors and various other businesses. Bachchan stated that only he had control over the commercial utilisation of his personality, name, voice, image, likeness and other characteristics that were uniquely identifiable and associated with him, and no one could do the same without his consent or express authorisation. Bachchan thus sought an omnibus order in the form of a John Doe order against such persons and others who were violating or infringing his image rights. He also sought an interim injunction restraining four of the defendants from transferring, alienating or creating any third party rights in respect of the domain names amitabhbachchan.com and amitabhbachchan.in.

Salve began his arguments by telling the court what prompted the veteran Bollywood actor to file the suit.

“All India sim card WhatsApp lucky draw. Lucky draw holders’ names — Amitabh Bachchan and Mukesh Ambani,” he told the court, citing one of the advertisements that were using Bachchan’s name. He added that complaints were made that such lottery advertisements were scams. After citing another example, Salve also brought to the court’s notice that people were making T-shirts and putting Bachchan’s face on them, they were selling his posters, someone had gone and registered a domain name, amitabhbachchan.com.

The suit said that defendant no. 2 (one Rana Pratap) was found circulating messages through WhatsApp, in which photographs of the Bollywood actor were illegally affixed along with an infringing text about Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) Lotteries. Another example of such infringement was that of defendant no. 3 who was a publisher. The suit said that Manoj Publications was commercially dealing in a General Knowledge quiz book on various e-commerce platforms, for aspirants who wished to participate in the television quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati, hosted by Bachchan. Defendant no. 4 was Swag Shirts which dealt in T-shirts through its website. The T-shirts prominently bore photographs of Amitabh Bachchan. The plea also cited the example of a Gwalior-based poster seller who was dealing with wall posters bearing Bachchan’s photographs and likeness.

The suit also prayed for a direction to the Department of Telecommunications and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to require internet service providers to take down a list of links and websites that unlawfully infringed upon Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights. The suit asked for an order directing telecom service providers to block access to all phone numbers used by the defendants to circulate messages on messaging apps such as WhatsApp, which amounted to infringement of Bachchan’s rights.

After the court order, advocate Ameet Naik stated that the landmark verdict would injunct any person from using the name, image, voice and other personality attributes of Mr. Bachchan without his consent and authorisation by any means, physical or digital. “The Indian jurisprudence will finally develop and evolve on personality rights, and Mr. Amitabh Bachchan is the right personality to set this trend,” he explained. He further said, “We are pleased that the Delhi high court has presented this landmark verdict, and I am grateful to Mr. Salve and Mr. Pravin Anand for this trendsetting order which will help talent in our country to protect their personality rights.”