From Privacy to Persona: The Story of Personality Rights in India
From Privacy to Persona: The Story of Personality Rights in India
In March 2026 the Delhi High Court made a ruling that showed how much personality rights law in India had changed.
Acharya Balkrishna, who is the Managing Director of Patanjali Ayurved asked the court to remove memes, caricatures and news reports about him from Instagram, Facebook and Google[i]. These were not made for commercial gain, they were satire and news responding to the Supreme Courts orders against Patanjali for making misleading health claims[ii]. The court gave him everything he wanted: an injunction covering social media, websites, the Metaverse, blockchain and any Artificial Intelligence program.
It also instructed Meta to disclose who was responsible for some of the accounts. When the lawyer for Metas said that the content was in jest and that freedom of expression must be considered, the Court did take note. However, did not say anything else about it.
It was held that the plaintiff, Acharya Balkrishna, was a public figure, and the content was an insult to him, which was enough for the case. The significance of the ruling is not only in the broadness of its scope but in the fact that the Court did nothing more than follow the quiet path set out in court rulings for thirty years.
This decision is not a development in the law. Rather, in a sense, it is the culmination. To understand why you have to go to the start.
The Foundation: A Balanced Beginning
Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, commonly referred to as Auto Shankar, is a 1994 judgment of the Supreme Court of India wherein the constitutional right to privacy was first recognized[iii]. It concerned an attempt by the Government of Tamil Nadu to prevent a Tamil magazine from publishing the memoirs of a serial killer. The court ruled in favor of the magazine.
While the ruling itself was significant, what was more significant was the legal doctrine of balancing rights set out by the court. According to this ruling, every individual has the right to maintain his privacy; however, individuals occupying public positions enjoy a separate standing. All their activities in the public role can be scrutinized. While privacy must be respected, it must give way where there is substantial public interest. The press has the privilege of reporting on matters of genuine public interest.
This delicate balance between privacy and accountability was struck in Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu. However, Rajagopal was no more in favor of one right than the other. In fact, this was the basis upon which personality rights were developed in India.
The Early Cases: When the Law Made Sense
The case of Phoolan Devi v. Shekhar Kapoor before the Delhi High Court in 1995 is very much connected with the origins of this principle[iv]. In this case, Phoolan Devi sought an injunction against the film ‘Bandit Queen’, where her rape was depicted in a manner which she did not consent to. The court granted the injunction and banned the movie.
A woman’s right not to be depicted for commercial entertainment of people without her genuine consent is significant. Nonetheless, the ruling of the court extended beyond what the case really needed. Here the unauthorized representation of her experience was considered as defamation or violation of emotion, which became part of invasion of privacy. In that case, personality right developed as a matter of controlling the depiction of identity. While the move might appear small then, it would grow to be enormous over the coming decades.
The terminology for the personality rights would formally develop in 2003 in ICC Development (International) Ltd. v. Arvee Enterprises, when ICC, the company responsible for organizing World Cup cricket, claimed their publicity rights extended even to their corporate identity[v]. The Delhi High Court dismissed this argument by declaring that the right of publicity “is an extension of the right to privacy and it can only lie in an individual or in any aspect of the individual’s personality,” which could be a person’s name, voice, personality or signature. This right is owned by the individual and not the event or organization itself.
The ICC Development decision was important not merely because of what it achieved but what it refrained from doing. For starters, it ensured that the right remained linked to the individual and that the right could not be corporatized.
Then, in 2010, came DM Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. v. Baby Gift House. Cheap imported dolls that imitated singer Daler Mehndi’s likeness and played his music were sold in markets across Delhi without permission[vi]. The court granted relief. But what stands out decades later is a passage the court added as a word of caution:
“In a free and democratic society, where every individual’s right to free speech is assured, the over-emphasis on a famous person’s publicity rights can tend to chill the exercise of such invaluable democratic right. If it were held otherwise, an entire genre of expression would be unavailable to the general public.”
The court was trying to do was to rein itself in after making a leading judgment. It clearly limited the personality rights within commercial misappropriation, where the person in question is being used without consent to promote a product; the right still leaves room for criticism, parody, satire, and caricature. This was the doctrine at its very best.
Finally, Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers (2012) filled the picture[vii]. A jeweller from Muzaffarnagar had made hoardings featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan endorsing his wares through reproducing the identical TANISHQ advertisement campaign made by Titan Industries Ltd., without even their consent. Here, the court laid down the principle that an unauthorized commercial usage of a celebrity’s likeness or association, especially when it is reproduced, amounts to misappropriation of personality rights.
By 2012, the doctrine had acquired its full form. Unauthorised commercial use of the celebrity’s likeness, face or name, but critical or satirical usage was not. By 2017, however, that distinction would no longer exist.
The Pivot: Puttaswamy and What It Changed
K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge Constitutional Bench ruled that privacy is a Fundamental Right protected by Articles 14, 19 and 21. This ruling rectified over four decades of judicial inconsistencies regarding Privacy. Although the Court’s decision was widely welcomed throughout the country, within its ruling Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul wrote a concurrence in regard to “Personality Rights”. He changed the common-law protections afforded to individuals for the commercial use of their identities into a constitutional right provided through the Fundamental Right to Privacy under Article 21[viii]. Each individual should have the right to determine how his/her identity can be utilized for commercial purposes and this right will now be protected at a Constitutional level. His intentions were clearly good; however, as we have come to learn, there is also structure.
Once Personality Rights are established as a constitutional right to protect an individual’s dignity under Article 21, the operative issue changes. Instead of asking whether someone is commercially using your identity without your consent (there is a clear limitation upon who may do so), you begin to ask if someone has used your identity without your consent in any manner whatsoever? These two questions seem similar. However, they are quite different.
Satire would be entirely safe under the first question since satire is not commerce. Consent is all that is required in the second question, something that public figures rarely provide when it comes to critical or parodied content. Since almost every unfavorable depiction could potentially become actionable under this formulation, and dignity and autonomy, constitutional values, weigh heavily against the competing right to free speech under Article 19, that latter right typically receives brief acknowledgment and then is essentially ignored.
Although Puttaswamy did not intend for this outcome to occur, it has created a structural basis for such an outcome.
2022 Onwards: When Urgency Became Overreach
Between 2022 and 2025 something alarming happened to celebrities in digital space. AI technology created a kind of harm that was real and could be identified. Deepfakes put Amitabh Bachchans face in lottery ads he had nothing to do with. Voice-cloning tools copied Asha Bhosles voice on AI music platforms without her knowledge. Anil Kapoor was shown as a speaker in endorsements he never gave. The courts reacted quickly. That was good. Amitabh Bachchans 2022 case got Indias blanket John Doe personality rights order[ix].
The September 2023 judgment in Anil Kapoor v. Life India & Ors. Stopped AI-enabled commercial misuse of his name, image, voice and even the catchphrase “Jhakaas.” Orders in the Asha Bhosle and Arijit Singh cases addressed voice cloning as a violation[x]. All of these cases had a commercial side. The courts were doing exactly what personality rights are for.
This trend of legitimate relief persisted up until 2025. As early as May 2025, the Delhi High Court granted a “dynamic+” injunction in favour of Sadhguru Jagadish Vasudev in Sadhguru Jagadish Vasudev & Anr. v. Igor Isakov & Ors., enjoining rogue websites and unnamed third parties from exploiting AI to manufacture deepfakes of his appearance, speech, and discourse to conduct financial scams and sell items purportedly attributed to him[xi]. Judge Saurabh Banerjee opined that the defendants had “taken things one step further” by using cutting-edge technologies to alter his voice and videos for personal gain, an archetypal example of commercial misappropriation with a discernible element of AI involvement[xii]. Likewise, in November 2025, The Delhi High Court in Jaya Bachchan v. Bollywood Bubble & Ors., granted an interim order prohibiting parties from using the actor’s identity, likeness, and AI-generated appearance for commercial purposes, such as selling unlicensed merchandise[xiii].
Then the courts started making broad orders in cases where there was no commercial exploitation. The content was satire, criticism or news and the only harm was that a powerful person did not like it.
In Independent News Service Pvt. Ltd. V. Ravindra Kumar Choudhary (the Rajat Sharma case) a parody styled as a courtroom show was stopped[xiv]. This result does not match with the Delhi High Courts 2011 judgment in Tata Sons Ltd. V. Greenpeace International. The court had said that parody and caricature are protected forms of expression in a democracy. The Vishnu Manchu order went further. Issued an injunction covering memes and online trolling. Then in March 2026 memes and news reports about a man whose company the Supreme Court had publicly sanctioned were taken down[xv]. The reason given was “disparagement.” The court did not consider DM Entertainments warning about democratic discourse. The defendants had cited this before the court. The judge who said public figures must be ready for criticism issued an order the day ensuring that Balkrishna would not receive any. The pattern is not random. The courts only consider what the celebrity loses if the content stays up. They do not think about what the public loses if it comes down.
What happens to the journalists report, the satirists cartoon or the citizens right to comment on publicly documented wrongdoing?
What the Madras High Court Gets Right
The comparison with some other judgments of the Madras High Court in the recent past serves to illustrate the difference. While delivering his judgment in T. Rangaraj v. Joy Crizildaa (2025), Justice N. Senthilkumar rejected an application by a celebrity chef for an interim injunction restraining a woman from discussing their relationship online through social media posts[xvi]. Referring to the plaintiff’s intention to restrict freedom of expression through a gag order, the Court remarked, “The plaintiff is only making an attempt to shut the voice of the individuals or the social media who are airing their views which are against him.”
In Kamal Haasan v. Neeyevidai (2025), decided by Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, the Madras High Court awarded relief, but only in case of commercial misappropriation. The plaintiff’s name, photograph, and film screen name “Ulaganayagan” were used by a company based in Chennai for selling T-shirts and shirts without any authorization from the plaintiff[xvii]. The court issued an interim order against such acts. It further made it clear in its order that “this Order shall not in any manner act as a stumbling block towards caricature or satirical representation of the plaintiff and the like”.
These orders are not remarkable for being creative. They are remarkable for being correct. They apply the standard that DM Entertainment built in 2010 and then warned courts not to abandon. Commercial misappropriation is actionable. Commentary is not. The question worth asking is why the Delhi High Court has increasingly stopped making that distinction.
The Structural Problem: No Statute, No Limits
One reason for this can be found in the Puttaswamy shift discussed above. However, there is another issue which is inherent to the system itself, that is, India lacks a law on personality rights. All advancements within this area of law from the case of Rajagopal in 1994 to the Balkrishna order in 2026 have been judicial innovations. There is no statutory description of the extent of the right, nor any statutory exception for satire and news reporting or proportionality analysis before issuing such a broad ex parte order.
In this regard, it would be pertinent to observe the judicial uncertainty prevailing within the very same Delhi High Court. In the matter of Bhuvan Bam & Anr. v. Inkwynk & Ors., decided in January 2026, Judge Jyoti Singh refused to make any prima facie finding on personality rights in the initial hearing of the case, stating: “I am of the opinion that this finding of personality in the first date is unnecessary[xviii]. No one can make any prima facie finding regarding personality right, that is my understanding.” Despite directing a takedown of unauthorized images, it would be seen that this decision to refrain from making an automatic determination of personality rights is different from what courts have done in the past[xix].
The Copyright Act, 1957, protects “performers” and confers certain rights on them under Section 38A, but the reputation of many celebrities is based on their achievements rather than performances[xx]. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 provides some protection when an individual’s identity is used as a trade mark but that too is a very narrow interpretation for cases dealing with personality rights. It is within this void that courts exercise their power.
However, judicial activism in favour of one party against another who may not even be present in court is bound to result in an obvious outcome.
The following requirements are essential for such legislation:
First, that the right is defined on the basis of commercial exploitation, not just unauthorized use of one’s personality;
Second, that the defences of satire, parody, criticism, and news-reporting be made explicit statutory defences that cannot be dismissed by the court at its discretion; and third,
That there be proper analysis for proportionality before issuing an ex parte injunction – is the subject matter commercial in nature? Is a lesser remedy sufficient? What will the public lose if the order is issued?
These demands are not unreasonable. They are the bare minimum conditions for a personality right to have any legitimacy as a legal mechanism.
The issue at stake
This is no denial of personality rights. Damages caused by deepfakes and voice cloning are genuine issues that need addressing. However, it’s an issue of the extent. Protection from harm due to exploitation of one’s identity may be justified. But, it cannot extend to protection against any criticism or satire because of one’s public conduct. It protects dignity; however, if used improperly, it will end up stifling criticisms under the cloak of protecting it.
Indian courts over time have muddled this principle. However, there are past judicial decisions that offer scope for rectification of such an approach. No case in India has held satire or criticism actionable under personality rights. Additionally, Parliament hasn’t ever allowed any such interpretation.
In conclusion, without any guidelines, this approach will only continue. It’s not going to affect celebrities, but other ordinary people who criticize under their right of free speech guaranteed under Article 19.
Author:- Rajeshwari Sharma, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us atsupport@ipandlegalfilings.com or IP & Legal Filing.
References
[i] Acharya Balkrishna v. Meta Platforms Inc. & Ors., CS(COMM) 2026 (Delhi H.C. Mar. 24, 2026). See Shubham Thakare, A Course Correction That Wasn’t: The Balkrishna Order and the Persistence of Overbroad Personality Rights, SpicyIP (Mar. 31, 2026), https://spicyip.com/2026/03/a-course-correction-that-wasnt-the-balkrishna-order-and-the-persistence-of-overbroad-personality-rights.html
[ii] Supreme Court of India, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. v. Indian Medical Association, Writ Petition (civil) No. 645 of 2022.
[iii] R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1994) 6 SCC 632.
[iv] Phoolan Devi v. Shekhar Kapoor, 57 (1995) DLT 154; 1995 (32) DRJ 142 (Delhi H.C. 1994).
[v] ICC Development (International) Ltd. v. Arvee Enterprises, 2003 (26) PTC 245 (Del.).
[vi] DM Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. v. Baby Gift House, MANU/DE/2043/2010 (Delhi H.C. Nov. 2, 2010).
[vii] Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers, 2012 (50) PTC 486 (Del.) (Delhi H.C. Apr. 26, 2012).
[viii] K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.
[ix] Anushka Singh, Protection of Personality Rights: Delhi High Court Order in Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Negi, Legal Service India (Jan. 15, 2023), https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-10132-protection-of-personality-rights-delhi-high-court-order-in-amitabh-bachchan-v-s-rajat-negi.html.
[x] Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors., CS(COMM) 652/2023 (Delhi H.C. Sept. 20, 2023).
[xi] Sadhguru Jagadish Vasudev & Anr. v. Igor Isakov & Ors., CS(COMM) 578/2025 (Delhi H.C. May 30, 2025)
[xii] Delhi High Court Protects Personality Rights of Sadhguru from AI Misuse, Bar & Bench (June 2, 2025),
https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/delhi-high-court-protects-personality-rights-of-2025-sadhguru-from-ai-misuse
[xiii] Jaya Bachchan v. Bollywood Bubble & Ors., (Delhi H.C. Nov. 10, 2025)
[xiv] Independent News Service Pvt. Ltd. v. Ravindra Kumar Choudhary, (Delhi H.C. 2024); Tata Sons Ltd. v. Greenpeace International, (2011) 45 PTC 275 (Del.).
[xv] Vishnu Manchu v. John Doe, (Delhi H.C. 2024). See Yukta Chordia & Praharsh Gour, Subjecting Free Speech to Hero Worship: Delhi High Court Passes Overbroad Injunction Order in Vishnu Manchu Case, SpicyIP (Oct. 2024), https://spicyip.com/2024/10/subjecting-free-speech-to-hero-worship-delhi-high-court-passes-overbroad-injunction-order-in-vishnu-manchu-case.html
[xvi] T. Rangaraj v. Joy Crizildaa, O.A. No. 948 of 2025 in C.S. (Comm. Div.) No. 250 of 2025 (Madras H.C. Jan. 7, 2026).
[xvii] Kamal Haasan v. Neeyevidai, C.S. No. 2 of 2026 (Madras H.C. Jan. 12, 2026).
[xviii] Delhi High Court Orders Removal of Unauthorised Images of Bhuvan Bam; No Orders on Personality Rights, Bar & Bench (Jan. 13, 2026), https://www.barandbench.com/news/delhi-high-court-orders-removal-of-unauthorised-images-of-bhuvan-bam-no-orders-on-personality-rights
[xix] Delhi HC Orders Takedown for Bhuvan Bam’s Images, Reserves Judgment on Personality Rights, LiveLaw (Jan. 13, 2026), https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/delhi-high-court/bhuvan-bam-relief-from-unauthorised-images-518638
[xx] Copyright Act, 1957, § 38A (India).
