This piece of article is Authored by :- Arpeeta Dash Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur. & Alok Ranjan Student at New Law College, Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune.
Introduction
The proliferation of generative artificial intelligence, deepfake technology, and digital avatar creation has precipitated an unprecedented expansion of personality rights jurisprudence in India, compelling courts to fashion equitable remedies in the conspicuous absence of a codified statutory framework. This doctrinal evolution reflects the judiciary’s recognition that an individual’s persona—comprising name, image, voice, signature, and other distinctive attributes—constitutes both a dignitary interest rooted in constitutional privacy and a commercially exploitable asset warranting protection analogous to conventional intellectual property.
Conceptual Foundations of Personality Rights
Personality rights, sometimes denominated “publicity rights,” are legal entitlements permitting an individual to control the commercial exploitation of attributes that render them identifiable, including their name, photograph, voice, mannerisms, catchphrases, and distinctive style. Scholars bifurcate this doctrine into two constituent branches: the right of privacy, which insulates an individual from unwarranted intrusion into personal affairs, and the right of publicity, which safeguards the commercial value inherent in one’s identity against unauthorised profit-seeking exploitation. Indian courts have consistently characterised the right of publicity as a derivative extension of the right of privacy, thereby grounding both branches within the constitutional guarantee of life and personal liberty enshrined under Article 21.
The genesis of this jurisprudential trajectory can be traced to comparative common law antecedents, most notably the American decision in Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir. 1953), which first articulated a distinct “right of publicity” separate from privacy interests. Indian courts have progressively adapted this transplanted doctrine to domestic constitutional values, producing a hybrid jurisprudence that draws simultaneously upon tort principles, trademark passing-off doctrine, and copyright’s moral rights framework.
Statutory Sources Within Indian Law
India conspicuously lacks a dedicated personality rights statute; consequently, protection is synthesised from multiple, otherwise unrelated, legislative sources operating in conjunction with constitutional principles and common law remedies.
The Constitution of India. Article 21 constitutes the doctrinal fulcrum from which courts derive the right to control one’s personal identity, having been authoritatively recognised as an inherent facet of the right to life and personal liberty in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017). The nine-judge bench in Puttaswamy confirmed privacy as a fundamental right encompassing informational privacy, bodily autonomy, and the capacity to control one’s identity, thereby substantially fortifying the constitutional substratum for subsequent personality rights litigation. Article 19(1)(a), guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression, operates as a countervailing constitutional principle, circumscribing personality rights claims where legitimate expressive interests, such as satire, parody, criticism, or scholarship, are implicated.
The Copyright Act, 1957. This statute does not create a freestanding personality right over an individual’s name or likeness; however, it furnishes ancillary protection to authors and performers where the impugned conduct implicates a protected work or performance. Section 57 confers upon authors “special rights,” commonly termed moral rights, including the right to claim authorship and the right to restrain distortion, mutilation, or modification of their work that would prejudice their honour or reputation; critically, these rights subsist even after assignment of economic copyright. Section 38B extends analogous moral rights to performers, entitling them to be identified as the performer and to prevent modifications of their performance likely to be prejudicial to their reputation. These provisions assumed particular salience in Abhishek Bachchan v. The Bollywood Tee Shop & Ors., where the plaintiff invoked Section 57 to contend that AI-generated content distorting his persona injured his honour and reputation as a public figure and performing artist.
The Trade Marks Act, 1999. Where a person’s name or likeness has acquired goodwill in connection with goods or services, the common law action of passing off—requiring proof of goodwill, misrepresentation, and consequential damage—furnishes an effective remedy. The statute expressly preserves the entitlement to institute a passing-off action independent of trademark registration, enabling courts to intervene where celebrity imagery is deployed in advertising in a manner likely to mislead consumers regarding endorsement or sponsorship.
Landmark Judicial Pronouncements
The jurisprudential architecture of personality rights in India has been erected almost entirely through a sequence of judicial decisions spanning three decades, predominantly emanating from the Delhi and Bombay High Courts.
R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu (1994). Although arising in the context of press freedom and a convict’s autobiography, this Supreme Court decision recognised the right to privacy as implicit within the constitutional guarantee of life and personal liberty, thereby laying the doctrinal groundwork for subsequent personality rights claims.
ICC Development (International) Ltd. v. Arvee Enterprises, 2003 (26) PTC 245, is widely regarded as the first express judicial recognition of personality rights in India. The Delhi High Court held that the right of publicity evolved from the right of privacy and can inhere exclusively in natural persons or in indicia of individual personality—including name, personality traits, signature, and voice—holding further that extending publicity rights to non-human entities would offend the constitutional guarantees under Articles 19 and 21.[2]
Titan Industries Ltd. v. M/S Ramkumar Jewellers, 2012 (50) PTC 486, saw the Delhi High Court restrain a jeweller from utilising photographs of celebrated film actors absent consent. The court articulated the right of publicity as the entitlement to control the commercial deployment of human identity, clarifying that the underlying grievance was not that identity ought never be commercialised, but rather that the prerogative of determining when, where, and how such commercialisation occurs must vest exclusively in the individual concerned.
Shivaji Rao Gaikwad v. Varsha Productions, 2015 (62) PTC 351 (Mad), witnessed the Madras High Court staying the release of a film titled “Main Hoon Rajnikanth” upon the actor’s contention that the production appropriated his distinctive persona and style in a manner risking reputational tarnishment.
Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi, CS(COMM) 819/2022, represents a watershed in the deployment of the “John Doe” injunction mechanism within personality rights adjudication. The Delhi High Court issued a sweeping ex-parte injunction restraining named defendants and any subsequently discovered infringers from misusing the actor’s name (including variants such as “Bachchan,” “BigB,” and “AB”), voice, image, or any uniquely identifiable attribute in connection with fraudulent lottery schemes exploiting his association with a popular television programme.
Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India, CS(COMM) 652/2023, materially expanded the doctrinal ambit of personality rights beyond mere physical likeness to encompass mannerisms, speech patterns, gestures, dialogue delivery, and signature catchphrases. This decision marked the judiciary’s first substantive engagement with the risks posed by generative artificial intelligence to personal identity, resulting in an ex-parte injunction against AI-generated deepfake content.
Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures LLP, 2024 SCC OnLine Bom 2445, confronted the Bombay High Court with platforms offering AI-powered voice-cloning tools capable of replicating the singer’s distinctive vocal timbre. The court granted an injunction extending across all media, including digital platforms and the metaverse, thereby recognising a performer’s voice as a constitutionally and commercially protectable personality attribute; the WIPO Magazine has since catalogued this ruling as an internationally referenced precedent on AI voice-cloning disputes.
Jackie Shroff v. The Peppy Store, CS(COMM) 384/2024, restrained unauthorised commercial exploitation of the actor’s name, voice, and image across e-commerce platforms and AI chatbots, while simultaneously declining to enjoin a YouTube creator’s tribute-style “Thug Life” edit, which the court characterised as an expressive embellishment of the actor’s existing public persona rather than a falsehood. This decision illustrates the judiciary’s calibrated effort to reconcile personality rights against countervailing free-expression interests.
Digital Collectibles Pte Ltd. v. Galactus Funware Technology Pvt. Ltd. (2023) further articulated this balancing exercise, with the Delhi High Court observing that the deployment of celebrity names and images for lampooning, satire, parody, art, scholarship, music, academic discourse, and news reporting constitutes a permissible facet of free speech under Article 19(1)(a) and does not amount to infringement of the right of publicity.[2]
The Bachchan Family Litigation and the Advent of AI-Specific Relief
The Bachchan family’s sequential litigation constitutes perhaps the most instructive contemporary case study of judicial responsiveness to technologically mediated identity misappropriation. In Aaradhya Bachchan v. Various YouTube Channels (2023) 6 HCC (Del) 727, the Delhi High Court sharply condemned the circulation of fabricated reports concerning the health of a minor, holding that such conduct contravened the constitutional guarantees of privacy, dignity, and protection from defamation, and that freedom of speech affords no sanctuary for the dissemination of baseless and harmful rumours concerning a child.
In Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld.com & Ors., CS(COMM) 956/2025, the Delhi High Court explicitly confronted misuse effected through artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, and facial morphing technologies, directing platform-level takedowns and URL-specific blocking within a seventy-two-hour compliance window. The court’s reasoning affirmed that a public figure’s photographic likeness cannot be commercially exploited absent authorisation, and that indecent or falsified deployment of celebrity imagery may simultaneously constitute infringement of personality rights, defamation, and violation of privacy.
Abhishek Bachchan v. The Bollywood Tee Shop & Ors., CS(COMM) 960/2025, decided in 2025 before Justice Tejas Karia, represents perhaps the most doctrinally elaborate treatment of AI-driven infringement to date. The plaintiff impleaded eighteen categories of defendants, spanning unauthorised merchandise vendors, AI content platforms generating derogatory or sexually suggestive depictions, intermediary platforms including Google LLC, and governmental authorities tasked with ensuring compliance. The court declined to issue an overbroad, unenforceable blanket injunction, instead mandating URL-specific takedown orders to preserve enforceability while affording comprehensive relief, and directed the platform defendant to furnish subscriber and channel-operator information in sealed cover for enforcement purposes.
Asha Bhosle v. Mayk Inc. & Ors., Interim Application (L) No. 30382 of 2025, saw Justice Arif Doctor of the Bombay High Court hold that enabling unauthorised voice-cloning of a celebrated playback singer constitutes a violation of personality rights, exploiting an identity attribute integral to her public persona, notwithstanding that the defendant AI companies were based outside India. Similarly, Nagarjuna Akkineni v. Various Online Platforms, 2025 SCC OnLine Del 6331, and the John Doe order obtained by Global Health Ltd. (Medanta) v. John Doe & Ors., CS(COMM) 6/2025, concerning deepfake videos misappropriating cardiac surgeon Dr. Naresh Trehan’s likeness to propagate unverified medical claims, further evidence the judiciary’s expanding readiness to grant urgent injunctive relief against AI-facilitated impersonation, irrespective of whether the claimant is a film personality or a professional public figure.
Digital Avatars and the Metaverse Frontier
The extension of personality rights protection into the metaverse and digital avatar ecosystem represents the newest jurisprudential frontier. In Jubin Nautiyal v. Jammable Ltd., CS(COMM) 166/2026, the Delhi High Court restrained the unauthorised creation and dissemination of AI voice models, synthesised voices, digital avatars, and deepfakes across online platforms, social media, and metaverse environments. This decision, together with the protection extended to entrepreneur Aman Gupta in May 2026 against forty-four defendants engaged in fake endorsements and AI-generated deepfakes, confirms that Indian courts do not confine personality rights protection to traditional entertainment figures but extend it to any claimant capable of demonstrating identifiability, commercially valuable goodwill, unauthorised exploitation, and consequential harm.
The Free Speech Counterweight
Personality rights are emphatically not absolute; Indian courts consistently subject such claims to a balancing exercise against the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a). News reporting, critical commentary, satire, parody, artistic expression, scholarship, and genuine fan tribute are generally afforded protection where the impugned use is authentically expressive rather than a disguised commercial exploitation. Conversely, courts intervene decisively where the contested use falsely implies endorsement, is manifestly commercially exploitative, inflicts reputational injury, or shades into fraud or deception. This distinction between actionable commercial exploitation and protected expressive or informational use represents the doctrinal fulcrum upon which the entire personality rights edifice in India presently rests.
Conclusion
The trajectory of Indian personality rights jurisprudence, from the Supreme Court’s foundational privacy reasoning in Rajagopal through the Delhi High Court’s technologically sophisticated interventions in the Bachchan family litigation, evidences a judiciary actively innovating equitable remedies to address lacunae left by an uncodified legal landscape. Nevertheless, the reliance upon judge-made law, synthesised from disparate constitutional, copyright, and trademark provisions, generates legitimate concerns regarding doctrinal predictability, cross-border enforceability against AI platforms domiciled abroad, and the practical limits of URL-specific takedown mechanisms. Commentators have accordingly urged legislative codification to furnish clarity, consistency, and predictable enforcement pathways commensurate with the accelerating pace of generative AI and digital avatar technologies.