Delhi HC Protects Hrithik Roshan’s Personality Rights; Orders Removal of Infringing Content

Granting relief to Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan, the Delhi High Court has protected his personality rights and directed the removal of content that infringes upon them, including the unauthorised use of his name, image, likeness, and voice.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora held that Roshan’s personality traits are protectable elements of his identity, entitling him to safeguard them from misuse, impersonation, or distortion, whether through artificial intelligence or otherwise, when such use is demeaning or lowers his reputation and goodwill.

“Therefore, prima facie the Plaintiff’s personality traits and/or parts thereof, including Plaintiff’s name Hrithik Roshan, voice, image, photograph, or likeness and other attributes are protectable elements of the Plaintiff’s personality rights. The Plaintiff is also entitled to protect itself against impersonation, false, obscene, morphed and distorted content created with the use of AI or otherwise, which is demeaning and lowers his reputation and goodwill,” the Court said.

Holding that the actor had made out a prima facie case for grant of ex parte ad interim injunction, the Court said the balance of convenience also lay in Roshan’s favor. It observed that denial of interim protection would cause irreparable loss and harm to his reputation.

In his suit, Roshan joined multiple causes of action arising from unauthorised commercial use of his personality rights by third parties, including the sale of merchandise, circulation of disparaging and obscene memes, impersonation, and misuse of his name, face, or voice through AI, morphing, superimposition, and creation of GIFs.

The actor argued that such acts amount to a violation of his statutory and common law rights under the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and also infringe his right to privacy, goodwill, and reputation.

“The assertions made in the plaint and submissions made by the learned senior counsel for the Plaintiff leave no doubt that the Plaintiff is a well-known face in India who has gained immense goodwill and reputation over a course of a very successful career and has acquired a celebrity status in India,” the Court noted.

Until the next hearing, the Court restrained Defendant Nos. 1 (John Doe) and Defendant Nos. 2 and 8 to 12 from utilizing Hrithik Roshan’s name, likeness, image, voice, or any other aspect of his persona to create merchandise or misuse these attributes through AI, deepfakes, machine learning, face morphing, or GIFs, whether for monetary gains or otherwise, as it would violate his personality and publicity rights.

The Court also directed various online platforms and intermediaries to cooperate in identifying and removing infringing material, “Defendant Nos. 3 to 7 are directed to provide the BSI details of the registrants to the Plaintiff within three weeks. Defendant Nos. 13 to 28 are directed to provide the BSI details of the users who have listed the infringing products on their e-commerce platform to the Plaintiff within three weeks. Defendant Nos. 31 and 32 will provide the Plaintiff with BSI details of the users of the URLs which have been directed to be taken down within three weeks,” the order said.

During the hearing, the Court had declined to order the immediate takedown of fan pages, observing that such an action could not be passed ex parte at this stage. It instead directed the defendants to furnish Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) of the creators of these pages within three weeks, allowing Roshan to implead them as parties before further orders are made.

Appearing for Roshan, Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi submitted that several defendants were using the actor’s name and image without authorization for commercial gain.

“Bags, T-shirts, and other merchandise are being manufactured using my name,” Sethi argued, adding that some fan pages were “commercializing my client’s image and generating revenue by virtue of his identity.”

The Court, however, observed,“We can’t have fan clubs taken down at this ex parte stage. Let those fans come; Mr. Roshan will then have to seek takedown of each fan club. He can’t pick and choose. From whatever law I have studied, I’m not willing at this stage to order removal of fan pages. We’ll have Meta give you BSI details; you may implead them, we’ll hear them, and then decide the issue.”

Before the High Court, Roshan sought protection of his personality and publicity rights, including his name, voice, image, likeness, and other attributes, alleging that third parties were exploiting these for monetary gain.

Roshan’s plea comes amid a series of similar actions filed by public figures seeking protection of their digital and publicity rights. Recently, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Telugu actor Nagarjuna, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, and Bollywood celebrities including Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Karan Johar have also approached the Delhi High Court against the unauthorized use of their likeness and identity.

Case Title: Hrithik Roshan vs Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors.

Bench: Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora

Order: 15 October 2025