Persona, Name, Images Being Misused Through AI: Delhi High Court Grants Relief To Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Against Violation Of Her Personality Rights

The Suit before the High Court was filed by the actor seeking permanent injunction restraining infringement of copyright, performer’s rights, misappropriation of personality / publicity rights, passing off and unfair competition.

The Single Bench of Justice Tejas Karia held, “Considering the pleadings, documents and submissions made by the learned Senior Counsel for the Plaintiff, it is clear that the attributes of the Plaintiff’s persona, including her name and images, are being misused by Defendant Nos. 1 to 9 and 13, without any authorization from the Plaintiff, by employing technological tools, including Artificial Intelligence. The said misuse is not only causing financial detriment to the Plaintiff, but also leads to harming her dignity, reputation and goodwill.”

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi represented the Plaintiff while Advocate Mamta Rani Jha represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The Plaintiff, an acclaimed actress and global ambassador for various brands, put up a case that that many websites and e-commerce platforms were involved in unauthorized use of her name, image, and likeness for commercial gain. The plaintiff raised concerns regarding her false impersonation, unauthorized use of her images on websites, sale of products with her images and usage of her names by Artificial Intelligence Chatbots. The plaintiff also claimed that her personality rights were being misused by superimposing her face on someone else’s body, generating images of her and creating inappropriate content. The plaintiff thus sought appropriate orders to take down infringing links of third parties / John Does as well as obtain proper details of such parties from the platforms and to implead them as parties in the Suit, if required.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that in Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi (2022), the Court granted the relief of ad-interim ex-parte injunction to the plaintiff therein, who was aggrieved by the unauthorized use of his celebrity status by the defendants for the promotion of their goods and services. Similarly, in Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf v. Peppy Store, (2024), the Court had protected the Personality Rights of the plaintiff therein by granting an ad-interim ex-parte injunction in his favour, restraining the liable defendants therein from violating the plaintiff’s Personality Rights and causing prejudice to the plaintiff’s reputation.

As per the Bench, the plaintiff had established a good prima facie case, and the balance of convenience also tilted in her favour. “The misuse of the Plaintiff’s name, image, likeness and other elements of the Plaintiff’s persona clearly constitutes infringement as the adoption of the aforementioned attributes such as name, image, signature, likeness, etc. without any authorization from the Plaintiff, will inevitably cause confusion and create a perception of endorsement by the Plaintiff. Further, irreparable loss, damage and injury would be caused to the Plaintiff’s goodwill, reputation and prestige if the interim injunction as prayed for is not granted immediately”, it stated.

The Bench further held that the Plaintiff is one of the most celebrated personalities in the Indian entertainment industry, who has served various brands as their ambassador, and she has garnered significant goodwill and reputation such that the members of the public repose their trust in the brands endorsed by the Plaintiff. “Any infringement of the Plaintiff’s Personality Rights, while causing confusion amongst the members of the public regarding endorsement or sponsorship of a product or service by the Plaintiff, will also lead to dilution of the Plaintiff’s reputation and goodwill”, it mentioned.

Thus, holding that the Plaintiff had established a prima facie case for the grant of an ex-parte injunction, the Bench restrained the Defenadants and all others acting for and on their behalf from violating the Plaintiff’s Personality / Publicity Rights, Plaintiff’s Moral Rights and / or Passing Off their goods and services as those emanating from or being endorsed by the Plaintiff

The Bench also directed Google LLC to take down, remove, disable and block the URLs mentioned in the petition within 72 hours of receiving the Notice. The Bench further asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as well as the Department of Telecommunications to issue necessary directions to block and disable all the URLs, within 7 days from the receipt of the Notice.

Cause Title: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld.com & Ors. (Case No.: CS(COMM) 956/2025)

Appearance

Plaintiff: Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, Advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik, Madhu Gadodia, Dhruv Anand, Udita Patro, Nimrat Singh, Deevesha Tudekar, Dhananjay Khanna, Aayushi Udani, Riya Kumar

Respondent: Advocates Mamta Rani Jha, Rohan Ahuja, Shruttima Ehersa, Devangini Rai, Aiswarya Debadarsini, Diya, Jahanvi

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