Delhi HC Protects Personality Rights of Actor Nagarjuna Akkineni from Unauthorised Use

While passing an interim order protecting the personality rights of Telugu actor Nagarjuna Akkineni, the Delhi High Court has restrained several entities from unauthorisedly misusing his name, image, voice and persona for commercial gain.

Justice Tejas Karia found a prima facie case in favour of the actor, noting that the attributes of his persona, including his name and images, were being misused by Defendant Nos. 1 to 13 and 20 without any authorisation from him.

The Court observed that exploitation of one’s personality rights puts at risk not only their economic interests but also their right to live with dignity, potentially causing immeasurable harm to reputation and goodwill

Justice Karia further remarked that Nagarjuna is a celebrated personality in the entertainment industry and that depicting him in misleading, derogatory or inappropriate settings would inevitably dilute the goodwill and reputation associated with him.

“The adoption of attributes such as name, image, likeness unauthorisedly will inevitably cause confusion in the minds of the public regarding association with or endorsement by the plaintiff,” the Court noted.

Appearing for Nagarjuna, Advocate Pravin Anand submitted that the actor is a highly reputed personality in the Telugu film industry, with national awards to his credit and appearances in nearly 95 films.

He argued that Nagarjuna’s name, image and persona were being misused in multiple ways, including through pornographic websites, unauthorised sale of merchandise, and circulation of AI-generated content such as YouTube shorts and videos. 

Accordingly, the Court restrained Defendant Nos. 1 to 13 and 20 from violating the plaintiff’s personality rights, moral rights, and from passing off their goods and services as those endorsed by him. They have also been prohibited from using or exploiting Nagarjuna’s name “Akkineni Nagarjuna” and “Nagarjuna”, his image, likeness, or any other identifiable attributes of his persona, including through emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Deepfakes and Face Morphing, without his consent.

The Court further directed Defendant Nos. 1 to 10 to take down, remove, disable and block the infringing URLs identified in Document A to the application within 72 hours from the receipt of the notice.

Additionally, it also directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to issue the necessary directions for blocking and disabling the impugned URLs identified in the actor’s plea.

Nagarjuna’s plea follows a series of petitions by other celebrities seeking protection of their personality rights. Recently, filmmaker Karan Johar, actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan moved the High Court alleging misuse of their names and images on products and online platforms without consent.

In Johar’s case, Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora observed that infringing websites and platforms had unauthorisedly exploited and misappropriated Johar’s voice, name and image for commercial gain, amounting to a violation of his personality rights.

Granting relief to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the Court said that “personality rights of individuals entail the right to control and protect the exploitation of one’s image, name, likeness or other attributes, in addition to the commercial gains that can be derived from the same.” The Court further held that unauthorised use of such attributes not only results in commercial detriment but also undermines an individual’s right to privacy and dignity.

Similar relief was extended to Abhishek Bachchan, with the Court observing that misuse of his identity through technology in misleading or derogatory contexts intruded upon his privacy and dignity.

The matter concerning Nagarjuna will now be taken up on January 23, 2026

Case Title:  Akkineni Nagarjuna v. X & Ors

Bench: Justice Tejas Karia

 Date: 25 September 2025