Delhi HC finds prima facie evidence of violation of Pawan Kalyan’s personality rights

In a petition filed by Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan for protection of his personality rights, the Delhi High Court recently observed that, in view of the settled law and on the basis of material placed on record, prime facie, there could be no dispute that the plaintiff’s celebrity status inherently grants him proprietary rights over his personality and associated attributes and the unauthorised use of such attributes amounted to the violation of the said rights.  

The defendants include Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd., Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd., Meesho Ltd., Google LLC, Meta Platforms Inc. and several unidentified entities / individuals who are purportedly engaged in the unauthorized, illegal, and wrongful exploitation of Mr. Kalyan’s personality,  publicity and privacy rights and other proprietary attributes.

The Judge stated in her interim order that while some of the defendants were using Mr. Kalyan’s name, likeness, voice, and image for selling merchandise for commercial gains either directly or through e-commerce platforms, the others were either using the plaintiff’s personality attributes for the AI software that goes into their webpages for commercial exploitation or selling merchandize without his consent. 

The matter has been ordered to be listed before the Joint Registrar (Judicial) on February 9 and before the court on May 12, 2026 with an instruction to the plaintiff to file additional documents, if any, before January 22 as per the provisions of Commercial Courts Act, 2015 and the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018.

The Judge has allowed any website/aggrieved party, which is not primarily an infringing party but is blocked/affected in pursuance of the present order to approach the court by giving an undertaking that it does not intend to do any illegal dissemination of the content that infringes the personality rights of the plaintiff, to enable it to consider modifying the injunction depending on the facts and circumstances.