Delhi HC grants protection Telugu actor Akkineni Nagarjuna’s personality rights

A bench of justice Tejas Karia protected Nagarjuna’s rights in his Sept 25 order, released on Tuesday, while dealing with the actor’s petition seeking protection of his name, image, voice

Portraying a celebrity in misleading, inappropriate, or derogatory contexts using their persona can harm their reputation and diminish the value of their goodwill, the Delhi high court has said, while safeguarding Telugu actor Akkineni Nagarjuna’s personality and publicity rights, restraining entities from commercially exploiting his name, image and voice without consent.

The judge thus directed several entities to remove within 72 hours the URLs infringing on the actor’s personality rights. (Nagarjuna Akkineni | Official X account)

A bench of justice Tejas Karia protected Nagarjuna’s rights in his September 25 order, released on Tuesday, while dealing with the actor’s petition seeking protection of his name, image, voice and other distinctive personality attributes.

In his suit, argued by senior advocate Vaibhav Gaggar along with advocate Pravin Anand, Nagarjuna had asserted that his persona was being misused for selling merchandise for illegal commercial purposes, his image had also been morphed in pornographic content, and artificial intelligence was being deployed for creating videos on YouTube and linking him to terrorist organisations and gambling.

In his 13-page order, the judge thus directed several entities to remove within 72 hours the URLs infringing on the actor’s personality rights, noting that unauthorised use of his persona could mislead the public and create a false impression of his endorsement.

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 earlier in September had also safeguarded Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan’s, and filmmaker Karan Johar’s personality and publicity rights, concluding that unauthorised use of a celebrity’s identity not only causes commercial harm but also infringes upon their right to live with dignity. In Johar’s case, the court had also directed the take down of obscene memes, social media posts, from various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube, remarking that unauthorised use of a celebrity’s persona for creating such content, tarnished the celebrity’s goodwill.