Delhi High Court protects Kajol's personality rights in interim order

The Delhi High Court has granted actor Kajol Devgan interim protection for her personality rights. The order restrains the unauthorized commercial use of her name, image, and voice, and specifically addresses threats from AI and deepfakes.

The Delhi High Court on Friday passed an interim order protecting the personality rights of actor Kajol Devgan. Justice Jyoti Singh restrained several defendants from using her name, image, voice, or likeness for commercial purposes, including selling merchandise, without her permission.

Court Extends Protection Against Digital Misuse

The Court also said that her personality rights must be protected from misuse through artificial intelligence and deepfake technology. It indicated that further orders would ensure that no one uses her identity in manipulated digital content. In addition, the Court directed various defendants to remove pornographic and obscene material published online against the actress.

Expanding Jurisprudence on Celebrity Rights

Advocate Pravin Anand appeared on behalf of Kajol Devgan. Recently, several renowned personalities from different fields, such as the film industry, sports, politics, the legal field, and social media, have moved the Delhi High Court to protect their personality rights.

Kajol's petition comes at a time when the Delhi High Court is expanding jurisprudence around personality rights, particularly in relation to digital misuse. The Court has recently granted strong protection to public figures such as Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, and digital creator Raj Shamani. These decisions reaffirm that individuals retain exclusive control over the commercial and digital use of their persona. At the same time, the Court has expressed concern about emerging threats such as deepfakes, voice cloning, and synthetic visuals, noting that they infringe not only upon publicity rights but also upon an individual's dignity and privacy, while reinforcing that satire, artistic expression, commentary, and news reporting must remain unaffected. (ANI)

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