Delhi High Court orders take down of posts with fake quotes of Sunil Gavaskar, unauthorised merchandise

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed Meta, X Corp and various e-commerce platforms to ensure takedown of social media posts attributing wrong quotes to former India captain Sunil Gavaskar and pages selling merchandise in his name without authorisation [Sunil Gavaskar v Cricket Tak (CricketTak557) and Ors]. .Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora passed the interim injunction in the suit filed by Gavaskar seeking protection of his personality rights.The Court ordered that Meta users should takedown the infringing URLs within 72 hours. Otherwise, the platform will have to take it down. A similar direction was issued to X Corp.E-commerce sellers were directed to take down listings misusing Gavaskar's name to sell their products, the Court further directed..On the last date of hearing, the Court had asked Gavaskar to provide the offending URLs to Google, Meta and X and had directed them to then act on his request seeking take down of content misusing his photos, name and infringing his personality rights. This direction was to be complied with within a week's time.Today, Senior Advocate Gopal Jain, representing Gavaskar, submitted that Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) and IP logs of the users have been provided to him. Consequently, the Court directed him to take steps to amend the memo of parties to implead the users..Gavaskar filed the present plea seeking directions against several entities to restrain them from unauthorisedly using his persona.Some of the infringing material cited by Gavaskar included fake critical comments against the Indian men's cricket team coach Gautam Gambhir, as well as other cricketers. He also flagged a fabricated comment on Virat Kohli.Gavaskar's counsel argued that such quotes could seriously jeopardize his credibility as a broadcaster and cricket commentator as it pertains to current affairs.The suit also highlighted several instances of fake autographed materials and pictures being sold online. People were being charged for these products even though they are fake and have no connection with Gavaskar, the Court was told.The next date of hearing is on May 22, 2026. .Gavaskar is the first cricketer to move Court in a personality rights litigation. Earlier, celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Karan Johar, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Jaggi Vasudev have approached the High Court and secured orders protecting their personality rights. Most recently Salman Khan approached the Delhi High Court with a personality rights suit. .Senior Advocate Gopal Jain with advocates Vidushpat Singhania, Aashita Khanna, Aanya Agarwal, Kartikeya Prasad and Rahul Trivedi argued for Gavaskar. Advocates Varun Pathak, Akhil Shandilya and Varsha Jhavar appeared for Meta. Advocates Aditya Gupta, Asavari Jain and Vani Kaushik appeared for Google.Central Government Standing Counsel Rohan Jaitley with advocates Dev Pratap Shahi and Varun Pratap Singh appeared for the Union of India.[Read order].[Read Live Coverage].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.