The Delhi High Court on Friday asked social media intermediaries to act within seven days on former cricketer and commentator Sunil Gavaskar’s plea seeking protection of his personality rights against unauthorised commercial use of his name, image, and likeness.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora directed Gavaskar’s counsel to first approach the concerned intermediaries and share all relevant URLs. The court said the platforms must treat Gavaskar’s suit as a formal complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and take necessary action within a week.
If any platform has objections to specific links flagged by Gavaskar, it must communicate those concerns to him, the court added. Gavaskar has been asked to furnish within 24 hours the complete list of URLs for which takedown is sought.
Gavaskar approached the court to stop social media platforms and e-commerce websites from exploiting his name, photographs or persona without authorisation. The petition rests on the principle of personality or publicity rights, which protect a public figure’s ability to control and commercially benefit from their identity.
The high court has recently seen a surge of similar petitions. Actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn, filmmaker Karan Johar, singer Kumar Sanu, Telugu star Akkineni Nagarjuna, spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary and podcaster Raj Shamani have all secured interim protection over their personality rights. Bollywood actor Salman Khan and Telugu actor Jr NTR have also moved the Delhi High Court with similar grievances.
